African Democratic Congress (ADC) 2027 presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar has said the report of the Office of the Auditor-General for the Federation questioning the ₦33.75 billion reportedly paid as palliatives to 3.29 million vulnerable Nigerian households is an indictment of the Tinubu administration.
Atiku, in a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, said the government is confronted with serious questions about whether the palliatives ever reached vulnerable households.
The Office of the Auditor-General for the Federation, in its 2024 Annual Report, reportedly stated that payment vouchers for ₦33,751,080,000.00 made to 3,295,207 households allegedly did not contain the full details of beneficiaries.
The former Vice President, who noted that ₦33.75 billion divided among 3.29 million vulnerable households amounts to barely ₦10,258 per household, said the figures expose the cruelty and inadequacy of the intervention programme.
He lamented that basic scrutiny has raised doubts about whether the palliatives reached the intended beneficiaries, stating that Nigerians need records of the disbursement and recovery of every fund that is unaccounted for.
According to him, “in other words, after removing subsidy, driving up transport fares, electricity costs and food prices, and leaving millions of families struggling to survive, the Tinubu administration’s supposed intervention amounts to roughly ₦10,000 per household — and even that miserable sum has now failed to withstand basic audit scrutiny.
“This is beyond a bookkeeping scandal. The intervention is insultingly small, yet even that small amount cannot be cleanly accounted for. 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. You cannot punish people with hardship and then play hide-and-seek with money appropriated in their name.”
Atiku added that “what makes the situation even more disturbing is the government’s own claim that more than ₦600 billion had been disbursed to over 10 million households, after Nigerians had earlier been told about 15 million households.
“It now appears that the Tinubu administration cannot give Nigerians a coherent account of how many households actually benefited from its intervention programme, while significant portions of the expenditure have failed to withstand independent audit scrutiny.
“A ministerial announcement is not proof of payment. A name on a social register is not a bank alert. If more than 10 million households received over ₦600 billion, government should be able to show who received the money, how much each household received and when the payments were made.
“The Auditor-General is reportedly questioning ₦33.75 billion supposedly paid to 3.29 million beneficiaries, alongside ₦36.74 billion in payments reportedly made without pre-payment audit and ₦4.62 billion for which payment vouchers were not produced.
“These cannot be dismissed as another set of bogus figures buried in government accounts. These are resources appropriated in the name of poor Nigerians who desperately need protection from a cost-of-living crisis aggravated by this administration’s rash economic policies.
“And because Nigerians cannot reasonably be expected to trust the same government whose expenditure is under question to investigate itself, my team will constitute an independent group of financial, audit, technology and public accounting experts to interrogate the available records surrounding these 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. When that work is completed, we will furnish Nigerians with the findings.” (The Sun)
