THE Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Dr Betta Edu, has reached out to the Nigerian military hierarchy as she solicits the support of the military to tackle humanitarian crises in the country.
During a meeting with the Chief of Defence Staff, General Christopher Musa, on Monday in Abuja, the minister said that alleviating humanitarian crises is top on President Bola Tinubu’s agenda.
She said: ”Our preference is to discuss humanitarian crises across the nation and the need to collaborate with the military to prevent more persons coming under the humanitarian bracket.”
The minister, who expressed the need to support the families of the servicemen, revealed that the Federal Government has unveiled plans to include families of wounded and fallen soldiers in the national social register and its poverty alleviation programmes.
According to her, ”we want to expand our social register to accommodate military personnel that have either been wounded or affected by war even soldiers that left their families behind.
“We need this data from the military so that we can have them captured under the social register.
”We also should be able to reach out effectively to those who are affected by humanitarian crises wherever they are with the support of the military” she said.
The CDS assured the minister of the support of the military towards the mandate of the ministry.
Musa acknowledged the link between military operations and humanitarian aid, and noted that successful organisations directly benefit their military efforts.
He thanked the minister for considering the military community on the task and said that he was optimistic that the collaboration will yield positive results.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that, the agenda of the engagement was to forge a formidable alliance between humanitarian efforts and the military.
