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…Says Tinubu Has Finally Adopted His 20-Year- Old Power Vision
ABUJA – Former vice president and presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Atiku Abubakar, on Sunday, challenged the Tinubu administration to explain why it continues to embark on unprecedented domestic borrowing despite what he described as a massive oil revenue windfall from soaring global crude prices.
Atiku, in a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, said the administration’s fiscal policies have become increasingly contradictory, opaque, and lacking in transparency.
He noted that the Federal Government has already borrowed about N5 trillion from the domestic bond market in the first half of 2026—nearly 80 percent of the amount borrowed during the same period in 2025.
“Such aggressive borrowing would only make sense if government revenues had collapsed,” Atiku said. “But the exact opposite is the case.”
According to him, the 2026 Appropriation Act benchmarked crude oil at $64.84 per barrel, while Brent crude has averaged about $92 per barrel between March 1 and July 14, 2026. Since Nigerian crude typically trades above Brent, he argued that the country’s actual earnings have been significantly higher than projected.
“This raises two unavoidable questions,” Atiku stated, adding, “Why is a government enjoying an extraordinary oil windfall borrowing at almost twice last year’s pace as though the nation were in financial distress? And where has the money gone?”
He explained that the gap between the budget benchmark and prevailing oil prices represents an additional $27.15 on every barrel sold. At an average production of 1.5 million barrels per day, Nigeria would have earned approximately $42.7 million in extra revenue daily. Over the 135-day period from March 1 to July 14, this amounts to an estimated $5.76 billion, or roughly N7.98 trillion.
“Nigerians deserve a full accounting of this windfall,” Atiku said. “Where has the money gone? Why has there been no transparent disclosure of the proceeds from excess crude sales? Why is government borrowing heavily when oil revenues are significantly above budget projections?”
The former vice president recalled that previous administrations maintained established fiscal mechanisms, including the Sovereign Wealth Fund and other fiscal buffers, for managing and reporting excess crude revenues.
“Today, Nigerians have been left completely in the dark. A government that cannot account for an estimated N7.98 trillion in additional oil receipts has no moral justification for plunging the country deeper into debt,” he said.
Atiku further lamented that despite higher oil revenues and the removal of fuel subsidies, millions of Nigerians continue to endure severe economic hardship.
He noted that recent United Nations findings indicate that nearly 80 percent of Nigerians cannot afford a decent daily meal, while critical infrastructure continues to deteriorate despite repeated assurances that subsidy savings would be invested in roads, healthcare, education, and other essential sectors.
“It is becoming increasingly clear that this administration lacks the transparency, discipline, and competence required to manage the nation’s resources,” he said. “Rather than allowing Nigerians to benefit from favourable global oil prices, it has chosen a path of endless borrowing, mounting debt, and deepening poverty.”
Outlining his economic agenda, Atiku said an ADC-led government would institute a rulesbased fiscal framework under which every naira earned above the budget oil benchmark would be transparently accounted for.
“We will deploy excess revenues to reduce Nigeria’s debt burden, strengthen fiscal buffers, and invest strategically in infrastructure, education, healthcare, agriculture, and other productive sectors that create jobs and drive sustainable economic growth,” he said.
He also pledged to restore transparency in oil revenue management through regular public reporting of excess crude earnings, reduce the cost of governance, eliminate waste, block leakages, and ensure that borrowing is undertaken only for productive investments capable of generating measurable economic returns.
“Nigerians deserve answers. They deserve accountability. Above all, they deserve a government that manages national wealth in the public interest—not one that presides over unprecedented opacity while asking future generations to repay debts accumulated in the midst of plenty,” Atiku cautioned.
Tinubu’s Latest Power Reform Delayed Copy Of My Longstanding Vision — Atiku
Again, the presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Atiku Abubakar, has said that the Tinubu administration has finally embraced an electricity policy direction he advocated more than two decades ago, after nearly three years of what he described as policy missteps that have deepened Nigeria’s power crisis.
Atiku, in a statement on Sunday in Abuja by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, said the recent acknowledgment by the Minister of Power that Nigeria can no longer rely solely on large, centralised power plants amounts to a late endorsement of the decentralised electricity generation model he has consistently championed for over 21 years.
“It should not take a government three years in office to discover what was obvious more than two decades ago,” Atiku said.
He argued that rather than embarking on fundamental reforms from the outset, the Tinubu administration chose to increase electricity tariffs without first addressing the structural weaknesses of the power sector.
“A government that plans before it acts would have fixed the system before asking Nigerians to pay more. Instead, this administration raised tariffs first and is only now beginning to consider the reforms needed to justify those increases,” he said.
Atiku recalled that while serving as vice president, he repeatedly urged then-President Olusegun Obasanjo to pursue a decentralised electricity generation strategy by harnessing Nigeria’s abundant hydroelectric, solar, gas and other renewable energy resources.
According to him, his conviction was so strong that he declined to preside over the Power Sector Reform Committee after it was established with a policy framework centred primarily on gas-fired electricity generation.
“This has been my position for more than two decades. When President Obasanjo established the Power Sector Reform Committee based principally on gasfired generation, I was appointed chairman. However, because I fundamentally disagreed with that policy direction, I declined to preside over the committee.
“I believed then, as I do now, that Nigeria’s electricity future lies in a diversified and decentralised energy mix, not in overdependence on a single source,” he said.
He noted that despite billions of naira committed by the Federal Government, states and local governments to the gas-focused strategy, the expected outcomes were never achieved.
According to Atiku, the National Assembly later investigated the power sector reforms and held the Obasanjo administration accountable for the outcome, adding that he was never invited by investigators because he had declined to lead the committee.
He said he reaffirmed the same position during an interview with ARISE News in 2022 and made diversified electricity generation a central pillar of his presidential campaigns from 2007 through 2023.
