Former Vice President and African Democratic Congress (ADC) presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, has questioned the reported N600 billion cash transfer programme of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration.
Atiku, through a statement issued by his media team on Thursday, demanded clarification on the identities and number of beneficiaries said to have received the funds.
The former vice president’s reaction followed conflicting figures released by the Presidency and the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Bernard Doro, over the number of households reached under the government’s expanded cash transfer programme.
On July 16 and August 2, 2026, the Presidency said the initiative had reached 15 million vulnerable households. However, on August 26, Doro told Nigerians that the programme had reached only “slightly over 10 million households.”
Reacting to the discrepancy, Atiku questioned why the figures from the Presidency differed from those provided by the minister.
He called on the Federal Government to urgently publish details of the households that benefited from the reported N600 billion disbursement.
“So where did five million households go? These are not opposition figures. They are Tinubu’s figures contradicting Tinubu’s figures.
“The arithmetic is even more troubling. Nigerians were told qualifying households would receive N25,000 monthly for three months — 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 the government says it spent just over N600 billion,” Atiku stated.
He also questioned whether the figures represented actual beneficiaries or names contained in an existing social register.
“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 added.
BACKSTORY:
Atiku Abubakar’s demand follows conflicting figures from the Tinubu administration over the number of households reached through its expanded cash transfer programme. While the Presidency previously said 15 million vulnerable households had benefited, Humanitarian Affairs Minister Bernard Doro later said the programme had reached slightly over 10 million households. The discrepancy prompted Atiku to question how the reported N600 billion was disbursed and call for greater transparency over the beneficiaries and payments.
