The presidential candidate of African Democratic Congress (ADC), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, has accused the Tinubu-led APC administration of spending approximately ₦8.8 trillion in public funds outside the official budget, citing a new International Monetary Fund report.

In a Saturday statement he personally signed, Atiku said the IMF report, published July 1, 2026 by Reuters, revealed that the federal government failed to record public expenditures amounting to about 2 percent of Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product.

“At the current valuation of Nigeria’s economy at approximately ₦441.5 trillion, this figure translates to a staggering ₦8.8 trillion in public funds spent entirely outside the statutory framework of Nigeria’s official budget documents, unaccounted for, unaudited, and hidden from the Nigerian people,” Atiku stated.

The former Vice President described the development as “the most consequential act of fiscal impunity in Nigeria’s recent democratic history” and called on the National Assembly, civil society, the media and other democratic institutions to prioritize it.

Citing IMF Resident Representative in Nigeria, Christian Ebeke, Atiku said the discrepancy arises from “large-scale government projects executed entirely off-budget.”

“The Tinubu administration is awarding multi-trillion naira contracts, moving massive public capital, and commissioning infrastructure projects entirely beyond the reach of the Auditor-General, the nation’s procurement laws, and the legitimate oversight of the National Assembly,” he said.

“It is a parallel fiscal universe, one governed by executive whim, shielded from the constitutional accountability that the Nigerian people are owed,” he stated.

Atiku linked the alleged practice to the “Alpha Beta arrangement” in Lagos State during Tinubu’s tenure as governor, alleging that a similar “off-budget economy” is now being replicated at the federal level.

He said, “What the IMF has now documented at the federal level is that same Lagos playbook, replicated at national scale and with national consequences.

“The man who perfected the art of the off-budget economy in Lagos has brought that ‘Beta’ form to Abuja, and the price is being paid by 220 million Nigerians.”

He also alleged that ₦800 billion had been “illegally deducted from the statutory allocations of state governments” without National Assembly approval or court order.

He said the funds, combined with the ₦8.8 trillion, point to “the construction of a massive, multi-source political war chest being assembled ahead of the 2027 general elections.”

According to him, “When a government operates a secret treasury of this scale at precisely the moment it needs to purchase electoral outcomes, the conclusion is not difficult to reach.

“The Tinubu administration is not reforming Nigeria’s economy. It is financing its own political survival with money that belongs to the Nigerian people.”

Atiku further referenced the recent controversy over the ₦1.3 billion inserted into the 2026 federal budget for the “Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council,” an agency the government later said did not exist.

He argued it shows “the boundary between what exists and what is a phantom… ceases to have any practical meaning.”

The opposition leader accused the administration of subjecting Nigerians to austerity while maintaining a “shadow treasury.”

He said policies including fuel subsidy removal, naira devaluation, and high interest rates were partly caused by the removal of ₦8.8 trillion from the productive economy.

“In the 2023 presidential election, I presented to Nigerians a comprehensive economic recovery programme anchored on a $10 billion stimulus package… The IMF has now answered that question. ₦8.8 trillion… was available. It was not unavailable. It was simply being spent in the dark,” Atiku said. (The Sun)