More than 10 million Nigerians who have benefited from the Federal Government’s N75,000 conditional cash transfer may be largely cut off from the digital channels through which government policies and programmes are communicated, APC National Chairman, Nentawe Yilwatda, has said.
Yilwatda said the beneficiaries, largely drawn from vulnerable sections of the population, include people without access to mobile phones or social media platforms.
The disclosure highlights a significant communication gap in the delivery of social intervention programmes, as some of the citizens targeted by government assistance may also be among those least able to access information about public policies.
The APC chairman spoke with journalists on Saturday in Maiduguri, Borno State, after a three-day retreat of the party’s National Executive Council.
According to him, the affected beneficiaries have limited access not only to social media but also to television and other conventional platforms where government policies are frequently discussed.
Yilwatda said the Federal Government had transferred N75,000 to more than 10 million vulnerable Nigerians under the conditional cash transfer scheme administered by the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Reduction.
His disclosure comes amid continuing scrutiny of the scale and verification of beneficiaries under the Federal Government’s social protection programmes.
The World Bank, in its latest assessment, reported that 10.44 million households had been reached through cash-based social intervention programmes as of August 2026.
The figures, however, refer to households reached through cash-based interventions and provide a broader measure than the specific beneficiary figure cited by Yilwatda for the N75,000 conditional cash transfer.
Yilwatda’s remarks therefore draw attention not only to the number of Nigerians receiving cash assistance, but also to the challenge of ensuring that government information reaches citizens who may have little or no access to the digital platforms increasingly relied upon for public communication.
