Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar says the massive flight of foreign portfolio investment from Nigeria is a damning vote of no confidence in the economic management of President Bola Tinubu.

In a statement issued by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, Atiku said the latest Nigerian Exchange data should trouble every Nigerian.

“Capital votes with its feet. Between January and July 2026 alone, foreign investors brought ₦513.36 billion into the Nigerian equities market but pulled out ₦779.43 billion, leaving a staggering net outflow of ₦266.07 billion.

“Foreign outflows exceeded inflows in every single month during the period. The net outflow is about 11.7 times the ₦22.68 billion recorded in the corresponding period of 2023. This is not merely an investment statistic. It is a confidence verdict on the Tinubu economy.

“Imagine a market where the shop owners are broke, customers have no money, the landlord keeps borrowing from everybody, and the few outsiders who brought capital are quietly carrying their money away. Only a foolish landlord would stand at the gate and call that prosperity. That is Tinubu’s economy.

“Only yesterday, Nigerians learnt that the Federal Government had increased its domestic borrowing by 90.5 per cent to ₦24.7 trillion in just eight months, while credit to government grew more than four times faster than credit to the private sector.

“So the picture is now painfully clear: Tinubu’s government is crowding Nigerian businesses out of the domestic credit market while foreign investors are taking their money and heading for the exit.

“Local businesses are suffocating. Foreign capital is fleeing. Government borrowing is exploding. Food prices has skyrocketed. Transportation costs are crushing families. Yet the same administration continues to congratulate itself on economic reforms.

Yet, with Nigerians crushed under the weight of its disastrous policies, the Tinubu administration still has the audacity to celebrate itself for presiding over an economic catastrophe of its own making.

“What exactly is working? An economy cannot be said to be recovering when entrepreneurs cannot afford credit, manufacturers struggle with operating costs, households are poorer and investors remain unwilling to keep their money in the country.

“The Tinubu administration may continue to manufacture impressive speeches and celebrate headline numbers, but investors are looking at the fundamentals — policy consistency, inflation, purchasing power, predictable regulation and the ability to earn sustainable real returns.

“And their verdict is increasingly unmistakable: take the money and run. Nigeria requires an economic policy that restores confidence, lowers the cost of doing business, makes energy and transportation affordable, encourages production and allows the private sector — rather than government borrowing — to drive growth.

“That is the fundamental difference between Tinubu’s economics of government consumption and Atiku’s economics of private-sector production and household affordability.

“You cannot borrow the private sector dry, impoverish consumers and then advertise yourself to the world as an investment destination. The investors are already answering the propaganda. They are leaving.” (Daily Trust)