The presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) and former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, has been vindicated by a recent United States Department of State report that raised concerns over fiscal transparency in Nigeria.
In a statement signed by the Atiku Media Office on Thursday, the report was cited as further proof of the Bola Tinubu-led administration’s failure to disclose how public revenues and expenditures are managed.
“Atiku has consistently called out the Bola Tinubu-led administration for its failure to uphold the basic standards of fiscal transparency, accountability, and disclosure required in a modern democracy,” the statement said.
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Quoting the US report, the Media Office noted: “the (Tinubu-led) government made its enacted budget and end-of-year report widely and easily accessible to the public, including online, but did not publish its executive budget proposal within a reasonable period.”
The report also stated that “budget documents did not provide a substantially complete picture of the government’s revenues and expenditures, or break down expenditures to support executive offices in the budget.”
It further found that “actual revenues and expenditures did not reasonably correspond to those in the enacted budget,” a position the Atiku camp said mirrors his long-standing concerns about discrepancies between approved budgets and implementation.
The US Department of State also criticised the Office of the Auditor-General, stating that it “did not meet international standards of independence and did not publish substantive reports.”
According to the report, the Tinubu government “did not meet the minimum requirements for fiscal transparency” during the period under review, citing failure to provide timely, detailed and publicly accessible information on government revenues and expenditures, as well as the absence of credible audit trails.
“This is precisely what Atiku Abubakar has been saying for years: that Nigerians are being kept in the dark about how public resources are generated and spent,” the statement added.
Atiku maintained that without full disclosure of public funds, Nigeria cannot attract investment, fight corruption, or build public trust.
“Transparency is not a slogan. It is the foundation of good governance,” he said.
“This report confirms what we have been saying: that Nigerians deserve to know where every kobo is coming from and where it is being spent. They are our resources and not the resources of President Bola Tinubu and his family and friends,” Atiku said.
The former Vice President stressed that fiscal transparency is a key benchmark for investors, donor agencies and credit rating firms, and reminded that Nigeria’s economy relies heavily on foreign investment and multilateral support for infrastructure and social programmes.
He reiterated that publishing detailed and timely data on revenue from oil, taxes and borrowing, and on how the money is spent, is critical to restoring confidence amid rising debt and inflation.
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