By Joe Udo
ABUJA (CONVERSEER) – Over the weekend, January 16-17, images surfaced online of Sokoto Governor Ahmed Aliyu giving small containers of cooking oil and salt to widows as part of Armed Forces Remembrance Day relief.
Another showed a northern politician’s wife with women lifting sugarcane bundles, labelled as empowerment.
Converseer learned that the Wife of a House of Reps Member, Aminu Aliyu, empowered Bauchi youths with sugarcane sticks in September 2024. The photo has resurfaced online and is currently trending.
With inflation exceeding 34% and food costs even higher, critics online mocked the items as dehumanising gestures that foster dependency rather than real solutions, such as jobs or infrastructure.
A few defended the aid as helpful in tough times, but most highlighted the poor optics in poverty-stricken regions.
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@SadiqMaunde wrote: “See Wetin First Lady dey empower people with in the North! Sugarcane, bro. Sugarcane!”
See Wetin First Lady dey empower people with in the North! Sugarcane, bro. Sugarcane! 😭😭😭 pic.twitter.com/sZvplHmf8P
— Abu Amir (@SadiqMaunde) January 17, 2026
@vian337 wrote: “Dressed in an expensive agabada only to give this as relief materials? These people cannot be God’s creation.”
Dressed in an expensive agabada only to give this as relief materials? These people cannot be God’s creation. Tufiakwa
— Vivian Umukoro (@vian337) January 17, 2026
@Harmless12345 wrote: “This is hugely commendable. The hardworking governor of Sokoto State is empowering a widow with 5 litres of oil and some things in sachets.
“This is just a representation of our calculated efforts in APC to ease the suffering of our people. Please, join me and celebrate our governor.”
This is hugely commendable. 🙏
The hardworking governor of Sokoto State empowering a widow with 5 liter oil and somethings in sachet.
This is just a representation of our calculated efforts in APC to ease the suffering of our people.
Please, join me and celebrate our governor pic.twitter.com/fznIzyCESv
— Harmless (@Harmless12345) January 17, 2026
Converseer reports that earlier, a Commissioner empowered junior staff with bicycles in Kano.
