Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has called on the National Assembly to immediately launch a comprehensive forensic investigation into the 2026 Appropriation Act following revelations of over N210 billion in duplicated and overlapping budget allocations.
In a statement issued by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, the presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress accused the administration of President Bola Tinubu of running one of the most fiscally reckless governments in Nigeria’s democratic history. Atiku said the discovery of the duplicated funds, coming alongside the country’s poor performance on nearly 90 percent of globally recognised prosperity indicators, had exposed deep flaws in the government’s management of public finances.
Atiku argued that Nigerians had endured relentless hardship for more than three years after being told that fuel subsidy removal, exchange rate unification, higher taxes and rising tariffs were bitter pills that would eventually restore economic stability. Yet today, he said, the same government cannot explain how over N210 billion found its way into duplicated and overlapping budget provisions. He maintained that a government asking citizens to endure economic sacrifice must first demonstrate fiscal discipline, but instead Nigerians have seen a budget riddled with duplication, questionable insertions, overlapping projects and expenditures that offend both common sense and fiscal responsibility.
The former vice president alleged that the reported duplication was part of a broader pattern of questionable public finance practices, citing budgetary allocations for projects outside the statutory mandates of government agencies and controversial insertions running into billions of naira. He also renewed his criticism of the administration’s handling of fuel subsidy, pointing to the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited’s audited 2024 financial statements which showed that N7.13 trillion was still spent under an item described as Energy Security Expenses, an amount he argued amounted to the continuation of petrol subsidy under a different name. According to him, Nigerians were never told the whole truth as the subsidy was not eliminated but merely repackaged, renamed and quietly charged against the federation.
Atiku warned that the integrity of the national budget had been compromised and that such practices could erode investor confidence and weaken public trust in government. He said the national budget is the single most important economic policy document of any government and should reflect national priorities, inspire investor confidence and assure citizens that every naira borrowed or earned will be spent wisely. When that document itself becomes contaminated by duplication and overlapping allocations, he added, confidence in the entire machinery of government is undermined.
The ADC chieftain lamented that the impact of fiscal mismanagement was already evident in the daily struggles faced by Nigerians, with families skipping meals, parents struggling to pay school fees, small businesses shutting down, manufacturers battling soaring production costs, young graduates unable to find jobs, and farmers trapped between insecurity and inflation. He insisted that a nation cannot budget for waste and expect prosperity, and argued that reforms without accountability amounted to another name for hardship.
Atiku urged the National Assembly to undertake a comprehensive forensic review of the 2026 budget, publish every duplicated allocation, identify every official responsible for inserting or approving such provisions, and ensure that all improperly appropriated funds are recovered. He also called on the Auditor-General of the Federation, anti-corruption agencies and civil society organisations to independently investigate the budget and identify those responsible for the alleged duplicated allocations.
He pledged that an ADC administration would restore credibility to public finance through transparent budgeting, zero-based expenditure planning, digital public expenditure tracking and strict personal accountability for public officers. He concluded with a warning that when the owner of the barn invites goats to keep watch over his harvest, he should not be surprised when hunger follows abundance, adding that Nigeria deserves custodians of her commonwealth, not caretakers of waste.
Abuja Network News
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