Kaduna State Governor Uba Sani has signed an Executive Order on financial inclusion for one million poor and vulnerable individuals across the state as part of efforts to mitigate the negative impacts of the end of the fuel subsidy on the populace.
Governor Sani explained the purpose of the executive order during its signing in his office, claiming it was in response to the state government's efforts to address the exclusion of approximately 2.1 million poor, underserved, and vulnerable people in rural areas from financial services and to ensure they benefited from both the state and federal governments' social intervention programs.
The governor indicated that a team consisting of government representatives, representatives from civil society, non-governmental organizations, and representatives from financial technology firms will create a state finance strategy to support the social intervention initiative.
According to him, in the upcoming year, the state government will consult with significant stakeholders including traditional leaders, religious leaders, and local government chairmen to ensure common citizen involvement in the financial inclusion drive.
He believes that about one million poor and unbanked citizens will be included in the financial services sector.
The governor criticized the fact that over seventy-five percent of residents of the North-West zone were not banked and were consequently financially excluded, alongside the fact that due to this, majority of these residents had no access to the various social intervention programs that were executed under the previous administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.