It is deeply unfortunate—and indeed troubling—that President Bola Tinubu, represented by his finance minister and coordinating minister of the economy, Wale Edun, could stand before a national audience at the Northern Nigeria Investment and Industrialisation Summit (NNIIS) 2025 in Abuja, and boast that 78 percent of beneficiaries of the N330 billion social protection programme went to the northern region.
Such statements do not merely expose a flawed policy; they underscore a dangerous pattern of favoritism that undermines national unity.
Are Nigerians in the South no longer citizens of this country? Are there no poor, vulnerable, and suffering households in the southern states who deserve equal consideration?
To frame social welfare as almost exclusively a northern entitlement is an insult to millions of Nigerians who cast their votes for this president from every region.
The social protection programme was sold to the nation as a safety net for all. Yet, by Tinubu’s own admission, the South has been sidelined. This deliberate skewing of benefits suggests that poverty in the South is invisible to the presidency—or worse, irrelevant. It is a betrayal of trust and a repudiation of the very idea of fairness in governance.
Every election, Nigerians from both the North and the South troop to polling units, endure heat, intimidation, and in some cases violence, to cast their ballots.
The presidency that emerges from such collective sacrifice cannot now turn around to allocate resources in a way that favours one region so disproportionately. This reeks of discrimination, not reform.
It is instructive to note that poverty is not the exclusive preserve of the North. From the creeks of the Niger Delta to the slums of Lagos, from rural Ebonyi to riverine Bayelsa, millions of Nigerians live in squalor and deprivation. To deny them their fair share of social protection is not only unjust, it is unconscionable.
The president’s words, glorifying the North as the “engine of the country” while downplaying other regions, fuel an already tense climate of ethnic suspicion and political imbalance. Nigeria cannot afford a leader who appears to govern for only one section. Such rhetoric divides rather than unites.
Tinubu cannot claim to be building a new Nigeria when his policies perpetuate old prejudices. If social protection is to be credible, it must be inclusive. Allocating 78 percent of N330 billion to one region only raises the question of why the South continues to be treated as an afterthought in the national scheme of things.
The president’s defenders may argue that poverty indices are higher in the North, but that does not justify near-total exclusion of the South. Equity is not about giving everything to the worst-off; it is about balancing needs across all regions, ensuring that no group feels abandoned by the government. This is what keeps federations alive.
Nigerians must not be deceived by statistics that paint the South as relatively prosperous. Even in the wealthiest states, inequality is rampant, and vulnerable households abound. The idea that they are less deserving of assistance is a myth peddled to justify marginalisation.
A president sworn to serve all Nigerians must resist the temptation to play regional favourites. Governance is not a gift to be doled out selectively. It is a responsibility to treat every citizen with fairness, regardless of geography. Tinubu must correct this imbalance immediately, or risk deepening the divisions that already threaten to tear this country apart.
The N330 billion social protection programme, according to the federal government on September 17, was disbursed as direct cash transfers to poor and vulnerable households across the country. Instead of symbolising national solidarity in the face of hardship, it has been turned into another emblem of exclusion.
Nigerians from every part of the country have the right to demand better. If this administration continues on this path, history will remember Tinubu not as a reformer, but as a leader who squandered unity on the altar of regional bias.
