And 10m Nigerians got N75,000 each gift from FG, but many poor citizens did not know

Notwithstanding the controversies that have trailed humanitarian gestures of Nigerian governments since the All Progressives Congress took over governance under the late Muhammadu Buhari, the APC-led Federal Government of Nigeria has continued to initiate and to implement such humanitarian programmes. But the programmes have only led to endless controversies.

The latest of such programme is the Tinubu Government’s current claim that it has given N75,000 each to some 10 million poor Nigerians.

Many critics have said the alleged programme is a fraud; that it never happened but that even if it did happen, the secret beneficiaries must be APC members and President Tinubu’s special supporters.

This reaction exposes not only the level of distrust in Nigeria of today but also the poor publicity that must have been given to such a national programme.

The controversy began after All Progressives Congress (APC) National Chairman, Prof. Nentawe Yilwatda, claimed that the “Federal Government of Nigeria have disbursed N75,000 each to over 10 million vulnerable Nigerians through its conditional cash transfer programme.”

Further report says “the initiative falls under the Renewed Hope Social Investment Programme, structured as a conditional cash transfer distributed in three tranches of N25,000 to cushion the impact of fuel subsidy removal.”

This revelation has been followed by heated controversy and allegation that it was a grand fraud against Nigeria and Nigerians.

On Monday, I listened to a respondent in a local radio programme in Aba, Abia State, lamenting over what he described as “another cheap lie against the people.”

According to him, in his whole village and community, no one has heard of this alleged national humanitarian programme, not to talk of benefitting from it.

But another respondent in a WhatsApp platform I belonged to said those who did not know about the programme may be illiterates or people who do not take advantage of the social media.

My honest response to this  is that the controversy itself is a confirmation that something was not well done in the packaging, advertising and delivery of the programme.

Take, for example, the argument that those who did not know about it may be people not connected to the internet or social media.

Are such people not supposed to be the primary targets for such humanitarian intervention? If they are part of the targeted beneficiaries, should one not expect use of different means of publicity in the marketing and delivery of the programme?

This explains why many Nigerians may today truly doubt the genuineness of this particular programme.