Former Vice President and African Democratic Congress presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar has alleged the existence of a fresh 12.8 trillion Naira hidden allocation in Nigeria’s 2026 budget under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration. Atiku made the disclosure in a statement issued by his spokesperson, Phrank Shaibu, on Monday.
He claimed that the 12.8 trillion Naira allocation was concealed under the Service-Wide Vote in the country’s 2026 budget. Atiku described the 2026 Federal Budget as the most brazen assault on transparency and fiscal responsibility in Nigeria’s democratic history, following what he called shocking revelations surrounding the Service-Wide Vote allocation.
He explained that 84 percent of the entire 2026 budget is concentrated in just 10 Ministries, Departments, and Agencies, with an astounding 12.8 trillion Naira warehoused under the Service-Wide Vote in the Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning. According to him, the revelation exposes what appears to be a deliberate architecture for opaque and unaccountable spending under President Tinubu’s administration.
He noted that while the Service-Wide Vote stood at 638 billion Naira in the 2025 budget, it has inexplicably ballooned to 12.8 trillion Naira in the 2026 Appropriation Act, representing an increase of approximately 1,918 percent in just one year.
Atiku stated that President Tinubu owes Nigerians a detailed explanation, arguing that no responsible government can expect citizens to accept a nineteen-fold increase in a notoriously opaque budgetary provision without disclosing exactly who will spend the money, what it will be spent on, and under what legal authority.
He added that should the Tinubu administration fail to come clean on the unprecedented 12.8 trillion Naira Service-Wide Vote, Nigerians would be justified in suspecting that the enormous sums are being stashed away to bankroll the All Progressives Congress political machinery and President Tinubu’s re-election bid in 2027. He concluded that a government with nothing to hide does not conceal trillions behind opaque budgetary headings.
