‘Ghost’ beneficiaries beneficiaries of N33/7bn cash transfer

September 13, 2026 nuus.ng reporters

• Doubts over whether billions in benefits reached poor Nigerians

By Dele Sobowale

The N33.75 billion transfer controversy, now rocking the nation, is neither new, nor did the massive fraud stop in 2026.

The well-oiled and entrenched mechanisms for transferring public funds, meant for poverty alleviation, into the bottomless pockets of public servants, continues till today as you are reading this story.

Commentators on social media, main line print and electronic media are only now waking up to a sad story which I got tired of writing about more than four years ago.

It is doubtful if most public servants can go un-indicted – if the totality of his activities in government were known.

Road to hell paved with good intentions

Because of the long origins of the current scandal involving N33.75bn, readers will permit me to present the most recent evidence.

The intentions were noble and commendable when the late President Buhari announced the Social Investment Programme, SIP, in the 2016 Budget. History, however, has demonstrated that good intentions are never enough to ensure the success of any programme. Buhari ended up creating a loophole for self-enrichment.

It is significant that two former Ministers – the first, appointed by Buhari, now on the run and the second appointed by Tinubu and sacked – served in the Ministry for Humanitarian Services; established to help poor Nigerians. Instead, it has become alleged cash cow for officials of the Ministry.

Meanwhile, it must be pointed out that the N33.75bn being queried by the Auditor General of the Federation, AuGF, is in respect of 2023 only.

Before then and since then, more billions may have vanished into the private accounts of public servants and their accomplices in banks – as well as political party officials.

What we are dealing with appears to be a grand conspiracy with roots inside the highest levels of government.

Below are excerpts of an article I got published in 2018; which many of My Fellow Nigerians, unfortunately, ignored. Believe me, several times N33.75bn has been lost so far.

Authority stealing

“65 agencies have never submitted accounts for audit – AuGF

“According to the report in one of the national papers, ‘The Auditor-General for the Federation, AuGF, Mr Anthony Ayine, has said that a total of 65 agencies of [Buhari’s] government never submitted their financial statements for audit purposes in line with the provisions of Financial Regulations 321.’

“For those who might not understand the meaning of what that report means, let me put it in plain language even before more of the report is brought into this story.

“In plain words, some federal public servants under Buhari had been robbing the country blind while the nation’s debts had been rising to astronomical levels.

“In short, the Buhari administration had been borrowing huge sums of money just to give the funds to some of our Ministries, Departments and Agencies to steal and ask for more.

“Massive corruption has shifted under Buhari to some of our MDAs while the President and his political party go around pointing fingers at others.

“A few more excerpts from that report should educate and alarm fellow Nigerians that we have in office a Chief Executive of Nigeria Plc who is allowing some public servants – Ministers, Permanent Secretaries, Director Generals, Managing Directors etc – to rob us blind.

“The report stated that 323 agencies defaulted in 2016, while 2015 and 2014 had 215 and 148 defaulters.

“So, under Jonathan in 2014, suspected stealing with impunity occurred in only 148 agencies of the Federal Government. “The figure climbed to 215 in 2015 and skyrocketed to 323 in 2016 under President Buhari.

“That is change; but certainly not the change Nigerians were promised.

“What we are experiencing under this government is a total breakdown of financial controls and licence to steal with impunity by public officials.

“Furthermore, according to the report, ‘as of April 2018, 109 agencies had not submitted beyond 2013; 76 agencies last submitted for the 2010 financial year, while 65 agencies have never submitted any account since inception.’

“As if that is not bad enough, the Auditor-Generals report indicts the office of the Accountant-General of the Federation, who, if that report is accurate, appears to be in collusion with the MDAs to steal at will.

“Fish rots from the head – Geoffrey Chaucer, 1342-1400.

“With regard to the rules governing the submission of audited accounts, the rot in the FG fish flows downwards.

“Instead of submitting their own audited accounts as requested five months after the end of the immediate past financial year, Buhari and Osinbajo are setting the bad example of disobeying the rules and regulations governing financial transactions.

“More damning is the likely reason why no audited accounts have been submitted. “That again can be summarized under the word ‘Ghosts’.

“The SIP is host to probably the largest number of ghosts and parasites inhabiting the Federal Government establishment under Buhari

“The ghosts of SIP include ghost schools, ghost schoolchildren being fed, ghost teachers employed and ghosts receiving N5, 000 per month from the FG.

“Just in case the reader thinks this is just my opinion, let me provide some evidence.

“First, Mrs Uwais had confessed to a National Assembly Committee that it was difficult if not impossible to locate the recipients, or ghosts, collecting the monthly handout.

“Second, Senator Danjuma Goje, Chairman of the Senate Appropriation Committee, had also voiced out loud his inability to locate any recipient of the money.

“Meanwhile, nobody accounts for anything.

“Who asks them?

“Consequently, it is quite possible that more money is being stolen under Buhari in the Executive branch than anywhere else in the country and those who had made a career out of blaming the NASS might be well advised to turn their gaze to the place where a whale of corruption takes place instead of being “hunters of cockroaches and lizards”.

“Finally, one place they should look at very hard is the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, which is directly under the Minister of Petroleum Resources.

“Now, if you don’t know who that is, please turn the page…”

•Source: AUTHORITY STEALING AGAIN UNDER BUHAR1 – July 2018

Appetite always grows with eating; and once public parasites discover a system allowing them to steal with impunity, they never stop.

Every Nigerian President is a captive of civil servants to a great extent. They can frustrate any policy, however meritorious, which does not meet their approval.

A visit to a retired Permanent Secretary would shock many Nigerians.

They live in opulence which their known incomes as public servants cannot justify. Here is why.

How Nigerian governments encourage corruption

“NEITI audit report probe suffers setback in Senate” – VANGUARD, August 4, 2026

The report by Henry Umoru also stated as follows:

…As CBN, NDDC, NEITI, NUPRC shun committee’s summon.

• You must appear on Thursday or we invoke our powers – SENATE

The news report, which many readers might have dismissed without much thought (if they read it at all), points to two of the cardinal reasons corruption has been institutionalized in public service.

Top officials constitute the prime accomplices of corrupt officials; perhaps because their own hands are seldom clean.

It is very difficult for a man, knee deep in filth to undertake the clean-up of the premises.

That explains why Nigeria’s public sector stinks.

Major cause

“Fish rots from the head.”

When was the last time you read that the president of Nigeria or the governor of a state ordered a minister or commissioner to respond to an audit query?

For that matter, when was the first time you heard or read of the president or governor doing that? Probably never. Almost without exception, all our presidents and governors, past and present, after swearing to uphold the constitution and to enforce our laws, have abandoned, wholesale, the enforcement of one of those laws. Specifically, almost without exception, they have allowed Ministries, Departments and Agencies not only to ignore audit queries, but to disregard summons by committees of the legislative branch with absolute immunity.

“Every great enterprise starts off with enthusiasm for an exalted aim and ends up bogged down in petty politics” – Charles Peguy, 1873-1914

Presidents and governors run public office without the controls which any of them would not allow in their own private companies.

Frequently, some of their appointees are invested with impunity, which breeds pervasive corruption, until the entire service is engulfed.

Obasanjo left in 2007 with N8 trillion for which there was no account.

Yar’Adua did better before leaving us.

A slight rise in expenditure, for which there was no explanation, occurred under Jonathan – mostly connected with the Ministry of Petroleum Resources.

When Mrs Diezani Madueke appeared before the NASS, she revealed, authoritatively, that 400,000 barrels of crude were being stolen a day – without naming one culprit and what the FG was doing to stop it.

NEITI’s complaints fell on deaf ears in Aso Rock.

The damn broke when Buhari became president.

Even MDAs, which previously answered queries, just stopped – why bother since nobody was penalized for flouting the law openly.

The Ministry of Justice and EFCC were among the worst offenders.

It is doubtful if there is any improvement under Tinubu – if the Ms Betty Edu incident symbolizes how alleged corruption is addressed by the current FG.

Dishonesty, deception as official government policy

“Every government is run by liars; and nothing they say should be believed” – I F Stone, US journalist (1907-1989).

Stone was one of my favourite newspaper commentators during my ten years in America; at a time when it never occurred to me that I will later be privileged to be a columnist myself. He taught his readers that unrelenting skepticism is the best attribute for a critic.

Government officials, largely, want to conceal more than they disclose to the public.

That is why in the past, files were declared CONFIDENTIAL, STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL etc.

The rejoinder to the published report about the N33.75bn was forwarded to me; just as I was ending this article. It was typical public service hogwash. Those defending the Ministry were probably not in office in 2023. Some of those in charge then have certainly retired. I laboured to find out why the audit query was not answered promptly when issued in 2023; to clear any doubts. Why now?

The entire defense rests on the existence of a “National Beneficiary Register, NBR, subject to identification, validation and authorization controls”.

Nigerians are supposed to believe that the NBR is authentic and available for inspection by interested parties. Nothing can be further from the truth. As the Head of one of the largest families in Lagos Island, several hundred poor by any measure imaginable, I made several attempts to obtain the list for Lagos Island during the Buhari administration without success. The response has not been better under Tinubu – whose Lagos Island family members also include people, known to us, who are incredibly poor; despite having the president as relative. It will also be useful if the lists of beneficiaries in some rural Northern communities are also released for verification.

The National Cash Transfer Office, NCTO, would be more convincing if it can simply publish the Lagos Island list of names for verification by us.

Our Island is so small, less than 400 streets, that the entire verification can be completed in less than three days. Unless Lagos Island is no longer a part of Nigeria, I am yet to meet a beneficiary.

How presidents can reduce corruption by 50%

Sometimes, the solution to a long-standing social problem might be hiding in plain sight.

Pervasive corruption in public service can be reduced by half if only presidents can take four measures.

First, appoint a Special Adviser on Audit; whose sole function is to read audit reports from the AuGF and to contact the Ministries, Departments and Agencies instructing them to answer the queries issued promptly.

Failure should attract penalties – including dismissal. Silence should be interpreted as consent.

Second, all summons by the National Assembly, NASS, must also be honoured as soon as possible; in the first instance by the head of the unit summoned. Corruption will remain intractable as long as the NASS is treated with the disdain the legislature does not deserve.

Third, the Presidency and Vice Presidency must demonstrate good example.

Good counsel, accompanied by atrocious conduct will never achieve results. Fourth, government should apply the Pareto principle by focusing on the six or seven MDAs allegedly accounting for nearly 70 per cent of funds misappropriated – NNPCL, CBN, Defence, Works, Education, Accountant General’s Office and Justice/EFCC.

Stop corruption in these MDAs; and the FG might not need to borrow so much anymore.

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• Doubts over whether billions in

benefits reached poor Nigerians

By Dele Sobowale