Atiku Demands Answers Over N33.75bn Cash Transfer as Auditors Search for the Missing Paper Trail

A fresh political storm has erupted around Nigeria’s social intervention programme after former Vice President and African Democratic Congress (ADC) presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar criticised President Bola Tinubu’s administration over ₦33.75 billion reportedly transferred to 3,295,207 vulnerable households in 2023. In a development that has supplied plenty of material for political satire, the money appears to have travelled electronically, while the documentation needed to prove exactly who received it has proved considerably harder to locate. The Auditor-General’s 2024 report says auditors could not authenticate the payments because beneficiary details were incomplete and the relevant Remita reconciliation statement was not produced.

Atiku has now promised an independent team of financial, audit, technology and public-accounting experts to examine the records and trace the funds as far as available documentation permits. He argues that ₦33.75 billion divided among 3.29 million households works out to roughly ₦10,258 per household, an amount he says is already too small to substantially cushion Nigerians against rising food, electricity, transportation and other living costs.

The Cash Was Transferred, but the Paper Trail Seems to Be Taking a Different Route

The satire almost writes itself: the money has a transfer record, the beneficiaries have registers, the government has figures, the auditors have questions—and somewhere between all four sits the great Nigerian mystery of “please provide the supporting document.” The audit report says ₦33.751 billion was electronically transferred to 3,295,207 households across 35 states, but the payment vouchers lacked complete beneficiary information, while the Remita statement needed to reconcile the recipients with official registers was unavailable to auditors.

The audit concerns extend beyond the ₦33.75 billion. Auditors also questioned ₦36.744 billion paid through 215 vouchers without the required prepayment audit and another ₦4.616 billion involving 101 transactions for which corresponding payment vouchers were not presented. In the bureaucratic version of hide-and-seek, therefore, the questions are no longer limited to one pot of money.

Atiku Enters the Audit Maze With a Magnifying Glass

Atiku has seized on the findings to demand greater transparency, arguing that Nigerians should be able to establish precisely who received the money, through which payment channels and whether the figures supplied by government agencies can be reconciled. He has also questioned apparently differing claims over the number of households reached by broader cash-transfer programmes, adding another layer to the accountability debate.

The ADC candidate says his proposed independent team will examine beneficiary figures, payment channels, reconciliation records and audit queries before making its findings public. His message is essentially that poor Nigerians should not have to perform forensic accounting before discovering whether the assistance announced in their name actually reached them. For President Tinubu’s administration, the issue presents a straightforward accountability test: produce the evidence, reconcile the figures and explain the gaps.

For now, the Auditor-General’s findings do not by themselves establish that the entire ₦33.75 billion was stolen or diverted; they establish that auditors lacked sufficient evidence to authenticate whether the intended beneficiaries received the payments. That distinction matters. As Atiku prepares his proposed investigation and scrutiny of the programme intensifies, Nigerians will be watching to see whether the missing documentation eventually appears, whether the government provides a convincing explanation, and whether further official findings emerge. OGM News NG will continue to follow the paper trail—and, hopefully, wherever the trail eventually leads.