Former Vice President and presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Atiku Abubakar, has vowed to set up an independent team of experts to investigate the alleged failure to account for ₦33.75 billion reportedly paid to 3.29 million vulnerable Nigerian households.
Atiku pledged in a statement issued on Saturday by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, following concerns raised in an audit report over the cash-transfer programme.
The former vice president described the audit findings as a serious indictment of the administration of President Bola Tinubu, accusing the government of removing fuel subsidy, increasing taxes and tariffs, and raising the cost of living while failing to adequately account for funds meant to cushion the impact on poor Nigerians.
According to Atiku, the ₦33.75 billion reportedly allocated to 3.29 million households amounts to approximately ₦10,258 per household.
He questioned the adequacy of the intervention, arguing that the amount was insignificant compared with the rising cost of transportation, electricity, and food.
“This is beyond a bookkeeping scandal. The intervention is insultingly small, yet even that small amount cannot be cleanly accounted for,” Atiku said.
He added that Nigerians could not be expected to trust the same government whose expenditure was being questioned to investigate itself.
Atiku also commended the Auditor-General for the Federation, Shaakaa Chira, for carrying out his constitutional responsibility despite the political implications of the findings.
“That is what institutions are supposed to do — protect the public purse, not the political comfort of those in power,” he said.
The former vice president expressed concern over what he described as inconsistencies in the government’s figures on the number of beneficiaries of its intervention programmes.
He noted that the government had previously spoken of 15 million households, while it later claimed that more than ₦600 billion had been disbursed to over 10 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,” he said.
Atiku said the Auditor-General had reportedly raised questions over ₦33.75 billion allegedly paid to 3.29 million beneficiaries, ₦36.74 billion in payments reportedly made without pre-payment audit, and another ₦4.62 billion for which payment vouchers were allegedly not produced.
He insisted that the funds could not be dismissed as mere accounting discrepancies because they were appropriated in the name of Nigerians struggling with the cost-of-living crisis.
Atiku Plans Independent Financial Probe
Explaining his proposed investigation, Atiku said his team would bring together financial, audit, technology, and public-accounting experts to examine the records surrounding the cash-transfer payments.
“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,” he said.
He said the team would trace the money using available public and institutional records and examine beneficiary figures, payment channels, reconciliation documents, audit queries, and other inconsistencies.
Atiku also called for greater transparency in the use of payment platforms, including Remita, saying transaction records should be available if the payments were genuinely processed.
“If beneficiaries received the money, there should be evidence. If access to records was obstructed, Nigerians deserve to know by whom and why,” he said.
He further demanded that the government publish verifiable payment trails for the beneficiaries.
According to him, funds should be recovered where beneficiaries did not receive them, while any official found to have diverted, misapplied, or misappropriated the money should face prosecution.
Atiku Calls for Economic Reforms
The ADC presidential candidate said Nigerians needed more than government announcements of palliatives, arguing that the country required policies capable of increasing citizens’ purchasing power and reducing the cost of transportation, food, and energy.
He said his proposed economic approach would focus on boosting domestic production, supporting local refining, and increasing energy supply to reduce costs.
“When fuel costs fall, transportation costs ease; when transportation costs ease, pressure on food prices and household budgets reduces,” he said.
Atiku accused the Tinubu administration of imposing additional economic burdens on Nigerians through the removal of subsidies, higher taxes, and increased electricity and transportation costs while allegedly failing to ensure transparency in the intervention programmes designed to cushion those effects.
He maintained that the government must account for the money appropriated for vulnerable Nigerians, insisting that the poor should not be made to bear the burden of both the economic hardship and any alleged mismanagement of funds intended to support them.
