Social Welfare Policy and Poverty Alleviation in Nigeria’s Post-Fuel Subsidy Removal Era: An Appraisal of President Bola Tinubu’s Administration

This study examined social welfare policies under the Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration in Nigeria, with emphasis on their role in cushioning the rising poverty caused by the fuel subsidy removal and foreign exchange unification. The aim was to assess how these interventions address rising poverty and whether they represent a sustainable social protection response. The study was anchored on Social Protection Theory, which views welfare as a rights-based mechanism for reducing vulnerability and promoting inclusive development. It adopted a qualitative documentary research design using secondary data from government reports, international organisations, and credible media sources. It was found that while programmes such as the Conditional Cash Transfer scheme, NELFUND, wage awards, food palliatives, and the Presidential Conditional Grant Scheme have expanded coverage, their impacts are limited by poor general policy direction and coordination, inflation, weak targeting systems, implementation delays, and exclusion of large segments of the informal sector. The study further revealed that these interventions are largely palliative and short-term, rather than institutionalised and revolutionary, thereby limiting their capacity to expressly reduce structural poverty. The study concluded that Nigeria’s current social welfare practice is reactive to economic shocks, not preventive or rights-based. It recommended legal institutionalisation of social protection, improved targeting through digital identity systems, inflation-indexed transfers, stronger monitoring and evaluation mechanisms, and better sequencing of economic reforms with social safety nets.