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• Demands independent audit, payment trail, claims social register not proof beneficiaries received cash
From Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
African Democratic Congress (ADC) presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, has challenged the President Bola Tinubu administration to account for what he described as five million “missing” households in its cash-transfer figures and provide evidence that more than N600 billion was actually disbursed to beneficiaries.
Atiku said conflicting figures released by the Presidency and the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Reduction had raised questions over the number of households reached under the Federal Government’s social intervention programme.
In a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, the former Vice President demanded an independent audit and a verifiable payment trail showing how the N600 billion was disbursed.
Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Reduction, Bernard Doro, had on Wednesday said the Federal Government disbursed more than N600 billion in cash transfers to slightly over 10 million households since Tinubu assumed office three years ago.
Atiku, however, said the figure conflicted with earlier claims by the Presidency that 15 million vulnerable households had been reached.
“On 16 July 2026, the Presidency officially declared that expanded cash transfers had reached 15 million vulnerable households. It repeated essentially the same figure on 2 August 2026. Yet on 26 August 2026, the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs suddenly told Nigerians that only ‘slightly over 10 million households’ had been reached.
“So where did five million households go? These are not opposition figures. They are Tinubu’s figures contradicting Tinubu’s figures,” he said.
Atiku also questioned the arithmetic behind the government’s N600 billion expenditure claim, arguing that the amount did not appear to tally with the announced payment structure.
According to him, beneficiaries were expected to receive N25,000 monthly for three months, amounting to N75,000 per household.
“If 10 million households received the full payment, that would be about N750 billion. If 15 million households did, it would exceed N1.1 trillion. Yet, government says it spent just over N600 billion.
“So how many received one tranche, two tranches or all three? How many payments failed or were reversed? How many names were merely lifted from an existing social register and presented as evidence of actual payment?
“A name on a social register is not a bank alert. Counting people in a database is not the same thing as proving money reached them,” he said.
The ADC candidate said the government should provide details of verified beneficiaries, payment tranches, state-by-state distribution, failed transactions and reversals and subject the programme to an independent audit.
“If N600 billion truly moved, then government must show the trail: unique verified households, payment tranches, state-by-state distribution, failed transactions, reversals and an independent audit,” he said.
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Atiku broadened his attack to the administration’s economic policies, arguing that the increasing number of Nigerians requiring cash assistance should itself be a cause for concern.
“A government boasting that tens of millions of households require emergency cash transfers should not be congratulating itself. It should be explaining why its economic policies pushed so many people into desperation,” he said.
He accused the administration of adopting policies that increased fuel, transportation, food, energy and other household costs, only to subsequently provide cash transfers to some of those affected.
“Tinubu has turned poverty into a government programme: make fuel expensive, transport rises; transport rises, food rises; food rises, medicine expensive, the family basket shrinks.
“Businesses face higher energy and logistics costs, workers lose purchasing power, and when millions become poorer, government registers them as ‘vulnerable,’ gives some of them cash and calls it reform.
“That is not prosperity. It is the industrial production of poverty followed by the bureaucratic management of the poor.”
Atiku contrasted the government’s cash-transfer approach with his proposed targeted intervention in the domestic petroleum value chain, which he said was designed to attack living costs at source.
“When petrol becomes cheaper, the bus driver spends less, the farmer moves produce more cheaply, the trader pays less for haulage, businesses face lower logistics costs and the savings travel through the economy to the family kitchen,” he said.
According to him, the difference between the approaches was that the Tinubu administration intervened after households had suffered the effects of higher costs, while his proposal sought to reduce those pressures before they reached families.
“Tinubu waits until poverty enters the home and arrives with a cash-transfer form. Atiku wants to reduce the cost pressures that drove the family into poverty in the first place,” he said.
The former Vice President argued that a successful anti-poverty programme should progressively reduce the number of citizens requiring palliatives rather than celebrate an expanding number of vulnerable households.
He insisted that the administration could not demand detailed costing and accountability for his proposed intervention while asking Nigerians to accept its own expenditure claims without corresponding evidence.
“The same government that demands every kobo of Atiku’s proposed intervention cannot ask Nigerians to accept its own hundreds of billions on faith. That is not accountability. It is hypocrisy armed with a calculator,” Atiku said.
He challenged the government to reconcile the conflicting figures and disclose evidence of the payments.
“Until the Tinubu administration reconciles these figures and produces a verifiable payment trail, Nigerians are entitled to keep asking: where did the five million households disappear to? Did they graduate from poverty, vanish from the social register, or simply disappear because government propaganda ran ahead of the truth?”
