The revelation by the World Bank that the Federal Government’s conditional cash transfer programme did not reach millions of Nigerians in need of urgent economic relief further confirmed public sentiment on the desirability of the programme.
In response to the deepening hardship being faced by Nigerians after the abrupt removal of the petrol subsidy and unification of the foreign exchange market in 2023, President Bola Tinubu ignored critics and launched the Conditional Cash Transfer programme, a controversial programme pioneered by Muhammadu Buhari, his predecessor. It was purportedly targeted at 15 million vulnerable households, with each meant to receive N75,000 within three months.
However, the World Bank, which had approved the $800 million for the programme, recently revealed that it reached only 5.6 million households and that only about 37 per cent received at least one tranche of direct transfers.
Since former President Buhari’s tenure, we, along with other well-meaning citizens, have always argued against this so-called conditional cash transfer schemes adopted by the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, governments. The “social register” is largely fictional.
Countries like Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, South Africa and others, have developed sound social registers and use them to channel routine cash transfers to vulnerable citizens to promote financial inclusion. On its own merit, it is a commendable strategy to give the lowliest members of society access to government-administered palliation.
Buhari set up the National Social Investment Policy Agency, NSIPA, and created the Humanitarian Affairs Ministry. Between 2016 and 2020, he had sunk a whopping sum of N619b (according to FG’s own admission, though the National Assembly put the figure at about N2 trillion).
The scheme was bedevilled by reports of large-scale stealing. In January 2024, former Humanitarian Minister, Sadiya Umar Farouk and former NSIPA boss, Halima Shehu, were quizzed by the anti-corruption agencies over the whereabouts of N37.1bn.
It was based on these nasty experiences that we once again cautioned the Tinubu administration against sinking the $800m IMF loan into the basket of the conditional transfer scheme. These cash transfers have come to be seen as a means by which the APC administration funnels public monies to party stalwarts.
It is a sour irony that IMF knew about the corrupt cash transfer system in Nigeria and still went on to offer the facility. Yet, it came back to complain about poor implementation as if it really cared.
The $800 million would have gone a long way to cushion the effects of Tinubu’s economic policies if it were invested as a rescue package for small and medium businesses, manufacturers and farmers. It is always better to teach the people how to fish rather than give them fish. This is our argument against these cash transfers which only fuel corruption and government dependency.
The cash transfers must stop.
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