In Nigeria, poverty is an unrelenting challenge. When in 2012 the National Bureau of Statistics reported that poverty was on the increase to the extent that 1980 to 2010 witnessed a steep rise from 27.2% to 69%, keen observers of the country’s socio-economic development had expected that new statistics would reveal significant improvement. Regrettably, sustained escape from poverty remains a dream distanced from reality. In 2016, the Federal government of Nigeria under President Muhammadu Buhari established the National Social Investments Program (NSIP), including the Cash Transfer (CT) to tackle poverty across the country and prevent the poor and vulnerable households from falling further down the poverty line. The CT program targets the poorest of the poor by giving N5000 ($11) monthly to “poor” households across the 36 States and the Federal Capital Territory. This project assesses the efficacy of cash transfer as a poverty reduction strategy in Nigeria, and the extent this social investment program considered the gender mainstreaming approach in its implementation.