The Governance of Nigeria’s Social Protection: The Burdens of Developmental Welfarism?

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The abstract is to be more detailed and requires information to be provided, i.e. the purpose, methodology and research results.

Graphic elements require improvement - their quality, and thus legibility is low, some of them require clarification of the titles; no sources.

The article deals with an interesting topic and has great potential. However, the article does not contain the basic elements, i.e. the purpose of the work, there is no clear description of the methodology of the research procedure and the data sources used in the research.  It results in a low assessment of the overall scientific value of the material presented in this form.

Author Response

The reviewer's comments have been noted. The areas highlighted for improvement will be addressed and shortly, the revised version of the article will be uploaded. Thank you

Reviewer 2 Report

This is an interesting account of the challenges of social protection implementation in Nigeria. I enjoyed reading this article as it has many strengths. The deliberate concentration on the Nigerian background is particularly useful, as it enables international readers who are unfamiliar with the Nigerian peculiar context to appreciate the discussion.

Whereas numerous studies on the challenges of implementing social protection programmes, particularly in Nigeria, exist, this concept paper goes a step further by suggesting practical guidelines and recommendations for improving these challenges. For instance, the author(s) suggests that rather than seeing citizens as passive recipients of welfare, the Nigerian government and its elites can reform its social protection provision by bringing its citizens on board, as critical stakeholders in the design and implementation of social protection programmes. The author(s) also highlights the importance of a political will, in reforming Nigeria's social protection programmes. This is critical as, the present scheme of things, social protection provision in the country is being implemented for short term clientelistic objectives.

While the study has these strengths, there are a few presentational issues that bear highlighting.

• The author(s) could do with thorough proofreading of the piece, as there are instances where sentences are unclear or muddled. For instance, Lines 178-180 are unclear and should be re-written. Also, Line 449 should be examined, as there is an "oft UN" in the sentence.
• Line 54 requires citation to support the claims being made.
• In Line 406, the author(s) introduce two acronyms (COPE and SURE-P) without explaining what they mean.
• In Line 350,  LMICs should be checked for relevance.
• Finally, the maps and diagrams provided in the study can be improved, as the quality is such that they are difficult to read.

Author Response

The reviewer's comments have been noted and suggested edits shall be improved upon as soon as possible.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Abstract unchanged - it is still very general; the purpose of the work is blurred.

Despite attempts to improve the quality of the charts, some of them are still difficult to read (sharpness of the image, technical issues). Unfortunately, it seems that the comments made in the previous review regarding the precision of the chart titles were not considered – e.g. Fig. 2 – given ‘%’ but in relation to what? Fig. 5 - GDP per capita - what unit of measurement? What is the source of the data e.g. for figure 1 (this is not clear from the text), Fig. 6 and 7 - duplicate titles etc.

Author Response

Having read the 2nd review report, I will re-work the article to address the following before resubmitting.

1. Re-write the abstract
2. Improve the quality of the charts in line with suggested edits

Regards 

Gbenga 

Reviewer 2 Report

I have no further comments to add. The author(s) have sufficiently dealt with my requests.

Author Response

Thank you to the anonymous reviewer.

Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you for considering my comments.

I repeat the same question - fig. 5: Nigeria’s GDP per capita – USD  or a different perspective?

The source from Figure 5 is missing from the literature list.

Sources have appeared under the figures (‘Author’). Does it mean that the Author made the figures (Fig. 1, 2. 3, 6) using the available data (what/whose data)?

Author Response

I have produced my responses to the reviewer's comments iteratively in BOLD letters as shown below:

1. I repeat the same question - fig. 5: Nigeria’s GDP per capita – USD  or a different perspective? ANSWER: GDP per capita is expressed in USD. 

2. The source from Figure 5 is missing from the literature list. ANSWER: The source has been provided.

3. Sources have appeared under the figures (‘Author’). Does it mean that the Author made the figures (Fig. 1, 2. 3, 6) using the available data (what/whose data)? ANSWER: All the Figures were produced/developed by the Author using data from various sources.

ALL the corrections have been effected on the manuscript and the revised version will be re-submitted/uploaded.

I hope my answers have satisfactorily answered and responded to the comments.

Thank you