Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has alleged that the Federal Government concealed a N12.8 trillion allocation in the 2026 budget under the Service-Wide Vote (SWV), demanding a detailed explanation from President Bola Tinubu’s administration.
In a statement issued on Monday by his spokesperson, Phrank Shaibu, the African Democratic Congress (ADC) presidential candidate described the 2026 Appropriation Act as a major setback for transparency and fiscal accountability.
According to Atiku, the allocation was lodged under the Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning through the Service-Wide Vote, a budgetary provision traditionally used for expenditures that cut across multiple government agencies.
He claimed that 84 per cent of the entire 2026 federal budget is concentrated in just 10 Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), with the N12.8 trillion SWV accounting for a significant portion of the spending.
Atiku further alleged that the figure represents a dramatic increase from the N638 billion allocated under the same heading in the 2025 budget.
He said the rise amounted to an increase of about 1,918 per cent within one year and questioned the rationale behind the development.
“President Tinubu owes Nigerians a detailed explanation. 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,” Atiku said.
The former vice president also claimed that if the government fails to provide clarity on the allocation, Nigerians may begin to question its intended purpose.
“Should the Tinubu administration fail to come clean on this unprecedented N12.8 trillion Service-Wide Vote, Nigerians would be justified in suspecting that these enormous sums are being stashed away to bankroll the APC’s political machinery and President Tinubu’s re-election bid in 2027,” he alleged.
As of the time of filing this report, the Federal Government had not responded to Atiku’s claims.
