N750bn Cash Transfer: Atiku Challenges Tinubu To Show Transaction Records

Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has challenged President Bola Tinubu’s administration to provide verifiable transaction records for the Federal Government’s conditional cash-transfer programme after the All Progressives Congress (APC) national chairman, Nentawe Yilwatda, said more than 10 million Nigerians had received ₦75,000 each.

Yilwatda made the claim on September 26, 2026, while speaking with journalists after an APC National Executive Council retreat in Maiduguri, Borno State. He said the beneficiaries were poor and vulnerable Nigerians who largely lacked mobile phones, television sets and access to social media.

“We have given 75,000 naira to over 10 million Nigerians across the country using the conditional cash transfer under the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Reduction,” Yilwatda said.

At ₦75,000 per beneficiary, a payment to 10 million recipients would amount to at least ₦750 billion.

Atiku is now asking the administration to account for how the money was identified, processed and delivered, particularly in areas affected by insecurity.

The former vice president said his own stated priority in government would be affordability, public accountability and protection of life.

“From my first day in office, I will put affordability and the protection of life at the centre of government,” Atiku said. “We will begin bringing down the costs of food, fuel and power, improving access to healthcare and education, and restoring security to communities living in fear. I will account for public spending and measure progress by what Nigerians can afford and whether they can live safely.”

He then turned to Yilwatda’s claim about the cash-transfer beneficiaries.

“Then there is your party chairman’s claim that more than 10 million Nigerians received ₦75,000 each in cash transfers—at least ₦750 billion in all,” Atiku said.

“Professor Yilwatda says many beneficiaries have no phones. So how did your government identify, contact and pay them, particularly in parts of Yobe and Borno where insecurity makes access difficult?”

Atiku questioned whether the beneficiaries received the money physically or through financial institutions, demanding documentation for either method.

“Did officials deliver the money by hand? If so, who delivered it and where are the receipts? If it went into bank accounts, show the transaction records,” he asked.

The former vice president stressed that his demand was for an auditable payment trail rather than the disclosure of beneficiaries’ private information.

“Nigerians are not asking you to expose poor families. They are asking for an auditable account of how the money reached them,” he said.

“If you could find ten million people to pay, you can account for the payments.”

The demand follows an earlier dispute over the scale of the Federal Government’s cash-transfer programme. In August, Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Reduction Minister Bernard Doro said the government had disbursed more than ₦600 billion in cash transfers over three years, reaching slightly more than 10 million households.