Nigeria’s federal government has announced plans to disburse ₦54.9 billion in August 2025 to more than 2.1 million households under the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programme. Alongside this, the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP) will extend ₦300,000 interest-free loans to about 21,000 smallholder farmers, with the aim of boosting food security through dry-season farming (Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, 2025). On paper, these interventions appear bold, compassionate, and timely—especially at a moment when inflation continues to squeeze households and hunger gnaws at millions.
But behind the headline figures lies a familiar challenge. Since the introduction of the National Social Investment Programme (NSIP) in 2016 and the palliatives of the COVID-19 era, cash transfers and loans have been widely promoted as instruments of poverty relief (World Bank, 2021; IMF, 2022). Yet poverty levels remain persistently high. The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS, 2023) reports that more than 133 million Nigerians—over 60% of the population—are living in multidimensional poverty. The World Bank (2024) further notes that rising inflation, food insecurity, and weak job creation continue to push millions below the poverty line, despite successive interventions.
The challenge is not the absence of programmes but the way they are designed and sustained. Cash transfers, while important in easing immediate hardship, rarely bring about lasting change on their own. In many cases, they are distributed unevenly, exposed to political influence, or weakened by limited monitoring and evaluation systems (Transparency International, 2023). Similarly, credit facilities for farmers can provide short-term relief, but without reliable access to markets, storage, extension services, and irrigation, loans alone are unlikely to translate into sustained agricultural productivity (FAO, 2024).