Reported by: Ijeoma G | Edited by: Oravbiere Osayomore Promise.
Former Vice President and African Democratic Congress presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, has demanded a comprehensive investigation into the ₦33.75 billion cash transfer scheme reportedly paid to 3.29 million vulnerable Nigerian households, describing the Auditor-General of the Federation's findings as a "damning indictment" of the President Bola Tinubu administration's social intervention programme .
In a statement issued on Saturday, September 5, 2026, by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, Atiku said the audit report revealed serious questions about whether the palliative funds ever reached their intended beneficiaries . According to the Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation's 2024 Annual Report, payment vouchers for ₦33,751,080,000.00 allegedly made to 3,295,207 households did not contain the full details of beneficiaries .
Atiku argued that basic scrutiny alone casts doubt on the disbursement, noting that ₦33.75 billion divided among 3.29 million households amounts to barely ₦10,258 per household—a sum he described as "cruel, insulting, and grossly inadequate" in the face of rising transportation fares, electricity costs, food prices, and taxes following the removal of fuel subsidy .
"This is beyond a bookkeeping scandal. The intervention is insultingly small, yet even that small amount cannot be cleanly accounted for," Atiku said. "If money meant for hungry Nigerians cannot be satisfactorily traced while access to records required for accountability is frustrated, then what we are witnessing is unapologetic wickedness against the poor" .
He also commended the Auditor-General of the Federation, Shaakaa Chira—appointed by the Tinubu administration in October 2023—for putting constitutional responsibility above political convenience . "That is what institutions are supposed to do—protect the public purse, not the political comfort of those in power," Atiku said .
Atiku further questioned the government's conflicting figures on the number of households that benefited from the programme. He noted that while the government had claimed more than ₦600 billion was disbursed to over 10 million households, Nigerians had earlier been told that about 15 million households were expected to benefit . "A ministerial announcement is not proof of payment. A name on a social register is not a bank alert," he said .
The former vice president also cited audit concerns surrounding ₦36.74 billion in payments allegedly made without pre-payment audit, as well as ₦4.62 billion for which payment vouchers were reportedly not produced . He said these discrepancies should not be dismissed as mere accounting errors but as resources appropriated in the name of poor Nigerians who desperately need protection from a cost-of-living crisis aggravated by the administration's economic policies .
Atiku announced that his team would constitute an independent group of financial, audit, technology, and public-accounting experts to interrogate the available records surrounding the cash-transfer payments . "We will follow the money as far as the available public and institutional records permit. We will examine the beneficiary figures, payment channels, reconciliation records, audit queries, and every material inconsistency that has emerged," he said .
He insisted that Nigerians cannot reasonably be expected to trust the same government whose expenditure is under question to investigate itself . "I will deploy independent experts to follow the money, expose those who stole from the poor, furnish Nigerians with the evidence, and ensure that everyone found culpable faces prosecution," Atiku declared .
The ADC presidential candidate also called for a shift from temporary palliatives to economic policies that would improve people's purchasing power and reduce the cost of essential goods and services . He argued that his proposed "production-linked subsidy" would focus on supporting domestic refining and increasing local energy capacity .
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