The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has described the federal government’s announcement of a $1 billion social protection programme as a panic reaction to its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar’s plan to introduce targeted production subsidy to bring down the cost of living if elected.
The party accused President Bola Tinubu of impoverishing millions of Nigerians through what it described as failed economic policies and then attempting to “buy them back” with what it termed as a hurriedly contrived palliative a few months to elections.
In a statement signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Bolaji Abdullahi, the party questioned where the government suddenly found the money after three years of asking Nigerians to endure hardship, while also demanding clarity on the programme’s funding. It also questioned the role of the First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu in the launch of the programme.
‘’We find this sudden discovery of compassion, and money quite remarkable. For three years, Nigerians have cried under the weight of food prices, transport costs and collapsing purchasing power, while this government insisted that there was no money to cushion the effects of its reforms.
‘’Now that elections are approaching, it has suddenly found $1 billion for the poor. If the government could somehow conjure up this money, why did it remain indifferent to the suffering of Nigerians for three years? Or did the poor only become visible when their votes become valuable?’’ the ADC asked.
It pointed out that even more instructive is the Tinubu government’s own admission that Nigerians now require protection from the economic shocks associated with its ‘failed reforms’, including the removal of fuel subsidy.
“ This is precisely what our Presidential Candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, has been saying in proposing a targeted production subsidy to bring down the cost of living. The government dismissed that proposal and its officials told Nigerians that subsidy, in whatever form, was impossible. Yet, almost immediately, it has announced a billion-dollar programme to support Nigerians from the consequences of its evil policies.
‘’Why did it take Atiku’s widely accepted plan for this wicked government to remember that economic reforms must protect human beings?’’, the party stated.
Abdullahi said that Nigerians will not forget that President Tinubu’s ill-conceived and terribly executed reforms have made their lives a living hell.
‘’They will not forget that under Tinubu, economic reforms mean seven out of 10 Nigerians have found it difficult to feed themselves; that businesses have collapsed; that Nigeria has become one of the top poorest countries of the world; that mortuaries have become fuller, that the blood of Nigerians have flowed freely under this administration.
“No amount of palliative, by whatever fancy names they are called, will make them forget this painful period.
‘’There is also the small matter of accountability, which this administration has found quite abhorrent. The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs says that more than N600 billion has already been disbursed in cash transfers over the last three years, reaching slightly more than 10 million households.
‘’What evidence exists of actual beneficiaries, and what measurable impact did that N600 billion have? Have these numbers ever been independently verified?,’’ he queried.
The spokesman of the APC said that every objective analyst, including international development agencies have lamented the ‘catastrophic’ delivery of social intervention programmes in Nigeria, especially due to lack of robust, verifiable social register and mismanagement due to corruption.
‘’This government has not told us what it is going to do differently. But no one is in doubt what this $1 billion intervention is about: a political programmeby a government desperate to show something as the election approaches after spending three years getting richer while the people get poorer.
‘’A government whose so-called reform has destroyed purchasing power through higher food, fuel, transport and energy costs, cannot now return with a one-off N40,000 per family, which it cynically tagged ‘shock-response payment.’ This makes one wonder if this is not indeed a vote-buying programme.
‘’Which makes one ask: What is the role of the First Lady in this programme? How come she is the one launching the federal government’s ‘social intervention programme’? While it is not unusual for the wife of the president to recognise to lend her voice to worthy humanitarian causes or even run her own pet projects, we find it quite strange that an unelected, and therefore unaccountable individual, is launching a social intervention programmeinvolving $1 billion in the name of the federal government.
‘’Which makes us ask again: Is this a federal government programme or a project of the First Lady? Who exactly is funding it? Under which budget head or financing arrangement was the money approved? What was the approval process? Which public institution is the accounting authority? Who controls disbursement and who answers to the Auditor-General and the National Assembly? the ADC further asked.
According to the party, every expenditure of the government can only be undertaken based on established guidelines by people constitutionally authorised to do so, stressing that although the ADC supports every genuine effort to protect vulnerable Nigerians, it does not think that Nigeria can build prosperity by manufacturing poverty through failed reforms and then distributing palliatives to its victims.
“The real choice before Nigerians is becoming clearer every day: between a government that is content on managing poverty and an alternative determined to restore purchasing power, production and dignity.
‘’If the Tinubu administration has suddenly discovered that Nigerians need protection from the cost of its failed reforms, then perhaps the first thing it should do is admit that Atiku was right: reform without relief is not courage; it is cruelty,’’ the opposition party said.
Meanwhile, Atiku has challenged the Tinubu administration to explain the contradictions surrounding its claim that more than N600 billion has been disbursed to “slightly over 10 million households” under its cash-transfer programme.
Atiku, in a statement issued by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Shaibu, said the figures expose an administration increasingly defined by government-by-press-release, arithmetic by convenience and accountability by imagination.
“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.
“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.
“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,” the ADC presidential candidate said.
But beyond the arithmetic, it said, lies a bigger indictment, stressing that a government boasting that tens of millions of households require emergency cash transfers should not be congratulating itself, but should be explaining why its economic policies pushed so many people into desperation.
“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, the 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. This is precisely why Atiku proposes a targeted, capped and transparent intervention in the domestic petroleum value chain. It is designed to reduce fuel and transportation 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.
“That is the difference. 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.
“A serious anti-poverty policy should reduce the number of people needing palliatives, not celebrate how many millions have become vulnerable.
“If N600 billion truly moved, then the government must show the trail: unique verified households, payment tranches, state-by-state distribution, failed transactions, reversals and an independent audit,” Atiku said.
Chuks Okocha
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