ABUJA — Human rights lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Femi Falana, has urged the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to immediately transfer N32.7 billion and $445,000 recovered from officials of the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development to the National Social Investment Programme Agency (NSIPA).
In a statement issued on August 24, 2025, under the platform of the Alliance on Surviving Covid-19 and Beyond (ASCAB), which he chairs, Falana said the funds should be deployed for their intended purpose of alleviating poverty through the National Social Investment Programme (NSIP).
He recalled that President Bola Tinubu had in January 2025 approved N32.7 billion for NSIP initiatives, including the school feeding programme, N-Power, conditional cash transfers, and the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP).
“The EFCC has commendably recovered the exact sum of N32.7 billion and an additional $445,000 from corrupt officials in the Humanitarian Affairs Ministry. But those funds are yet to be redirected to NSIPA, contrary to the EFCC’s policy that recovered assets should serve their original purpose,” Falana noted.
He further urged the anti-graft agency to intensify efforts to recover the outstanding N20 billion still missing, stressing that the immediate transfer of the recovered funds would ease the hardship currently faced by over 133 million Nigerians living in multi-dimensional poverty.
Falana also called on federal, state, and local governments to scale up funding for social protection programmes, citing the surge in national revenues. According to him, the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) disbursed N2.001 trillion in July 2025 from a gross revenue of N3.836 trillion, following N1.8 trillion shared in June.
“Governments must go beyond lip service and invest meaningfully in social protection programmes. They must put their money where their mouth is,” he insisted.
His comments come at a time when questions over transparency and accountability continue to trail Nigeria’s social investment funds, especially after high-profile corruption scandals involving monies earmarked for the poor.
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