Fresh questions have emerged over Nigeria’s cash transfer programme after the Auditor-General for the Federation said there was insufficient evidence to establish that N33.75 billion disbursed to more than 3.29 million households in 2023 actually reached genuine beneficiaries.
The revelation is coming as the Federal Government is launching a new $1 billion social protection programme aimed at lifting vulnerable Nigerians out of poverty and moving them from temporary relief to sustainable economic empowerment.
The audit concern is contained in the 2024 Annual Report on Non-Compliance and Internal Control Weaknesses in Ministries, Departments and Agencies, which examined transactions of the National Cash Transfer Office (NCTO), Abuja, for the 2023 financial year.
According to the report, electronic transfers totalling N33.751 billion were made to 3,295,207 households across 35 states. The beneficiaries were said to have been drawn from the National Social Register and enrolled on the National Beneficiary Register.
But the Auditor-General said the NCTO failed to provide the records necessary to independently establish who actually received the money.
The auditors said the payment vouchers lacked complete beneficiary information and that supporting records needed to reconcile the payments with the official beneficiary registers were not provided.
More significantly, the NCTO failed to produce a Remita statement showing the individuals and households that actually received the funds against those listed on the National Social Register and National Beneficiary Register.
“This hindered the authentication of the payments and made it difficult to ascertain whether the beneficiaries who received the funds were genuine,” the auditors said.
The audit process was further frustrated by the alleged refusal of NCTO accounts officials to provide the Remita records.
The report stated that efforts to obtain access to the statement were “obstructed and denied” by accounts staff, thereby frustrating the audit.
The Auditor-General said the shortcomings were contrary to the provisions of the Financial Regulations 2009, which prescribe strict documentation and verification requirements for public expenditure.
Paragraph 613 requires paying officers to satisfy themselves that the person receiving a payment is authorised to do so and, where necessary, provide proof of identity.
Similarly, paragraph 603(i) requires payment vouchers to contain full particulars of the service for which payment is made and to be supported by relevant documents sufficient to facilitate verification.
In this case, the audit suggests that the documentation trail was inadequate to meet those basic requirements.
The latest findings also revive longstanding questions about the credibility of Nigeria’s social register.
In 2023, state governors at a meeting of the National Economic Council reportedly called for the disbandment of the existing register, citing concerns over its credibility and proposing that a new register be compiled for federal social intervention programmes.
The then Permanent Secretary in the relevant ministry, Dr Sani Gwarzo, acknowledged that the register might not be as accurate as expected but defended it as a starting point that could subsequently be reviewed.
The controversy over the register became even more consequential as the Federal Government continued to rely on it for identifying beneficiaries of social interventions.
In January 2024, President Bola Tinubu suspended programmes administered by the National Social Investment Programme Agency (NSIPA), which is domiciled under the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation.
The suspension followed investigations into alleged corruption in the humanitarian affairs ministry and the suspension of the then minister, Beta Edu.
The latest audit finding therefore raises questions not only about individual payments but also about the integrity of the systems used to identify, verify and pay beneficiaries of Nigeria’s social safety-net programmes.
The concerns have emerged just as the Federal Government has unveiled another major intervention.
The Household Prosperity and Empowerment Social Protection Project (HOPE-SP), backed by a $1 billion programme, was launched at the State House Banquet Hall in Abuja as part of a broader effort to strengthen Nigeria’s humanitarian response and poverty-reduction framework.
The government says the initiative is designed to move vulnerable Nigerians beyond temporary assistance towards economic empowerment and self-reliance.
But the Auditor-General’s findings inevitably raise concerns over whether the government has sufficiently strengthened the mechanisms for identifying beneficiaries, tracking disbursements and independently verifying results before committing more public money to cash transfers.
The issue is particularly important given the scale of poverty in the country.
The World Bank has reported a steep increase in Nigeria’s poverty rate in recent years, highlighting the growing pressure on households despite improvements in some macroeconomic indicators.
Its Nigeria Development Update projected the national poverty rate at about 64 per cent in 2025 and 2026, after rising from 40 per cent in 2019 to 45 per cent in 2020, 47 per cent in 2021, 51 per cent in 2022, 56 per cent in 2023 and 61 per cent in 2024.
The number of Nigerians living in poverty has similarly increased, with World Bank estimates putting the figure at about 160 million in 2025 and 2026.
The number of Nigerians living in extreme or ultra-poverty has also risen sharply, from about 30 million in 2019 to an estimated 78 million in 2025 and 2026.
Development expert and Executive Director of the Centre for Fiscal Transparency and Public Integrity, Dr Umar Yakubu, said the Auditor-General’s findings exposed what he described as a culture of impunity within the public service.
He said the inability to verify N33.75 billion in digital disbursements against genuine beneficiaries demonstrated the danger of weak controls in social intervention programmes.
Yakubu argued that the alleged obstruction of auditors seeking Remita records was particularly disturbing because it prevented independent scrutiny of billions of naira in public funds.
He called for stronger technology-driven oversight, independent verification and transparency mechanisms to prevent social intervention programmes from becoming conduits for unverified expenditure.
“Social intervention programmes cannot function as opaque conduits for unverified expenditures while vulnerable populations remain statistical justifications for leaked funds,” he said.
CSO demands disclosure before more funds
The International Society for Social Justice and Human Rights has also demanded accountability over the N33.7 billion before the Federal Government commits additional funds to the social protection programme.
Its Chancellor, Dr Jackson Omenazu, described the Auditor-General’s inability to verify the payments as a serious warning about the management of public resources.
He said the government must account for the money before expanding or launching similar interventions.
“If public money cannot be independently audited, Nigerians have a legitimate right to ask: who is accountable for the money and where did it go?” Omenazu said.
The organisation demanded the immediate publication of details of the N33.7 billion transfers, including the beneficiaries, amounts paid, implementing agencies and purposes of the payments.
It also called for an independent forensic audit of the programme, with the findings made public, and unrestricted access for the Auditor-General and other constitutionally authorised oversight institutions to records relating to the transfers.
The group further urged the government to suspend additional disbursements or expansion of similar programmes until the outstanding accountability questions are resolved.
It said any continuation of the new $1 billion intervention should be accompanied by stronger safeguards, including transparent procurement, robust beneficiary verification, independent monitoring and regular public reporting.
Where investigations establish that public officials, contractors or beneficiaries diverted or misappropriated funds, the organisation called for recovery of the money and prosecution of those responsible.
