Former Vice President and presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress, ADC, Atiku Abubakar, has asked President Bola Tinubu to reveal to Nigerians those who stole two per cent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product.
Atiku made the demand in statement released on Saturday by his spokesperson, Phrank Shaibu.
The demand followed a revelation by the International Monetary Fund, IMF, that Nigeria omitted public expenditure equivalent to two per cent of its gross domestic product, GDP, from recent budgets.
Reacting, Atiku said the IMF’s revelation has exposed what appears to be a deeply entrenched system of institutional corruption under the Bola Tinubu administration.
According to him, the IMF’s disclosure, coming on the heels of the scandal surrounding the controversial Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC), paints the picture of a government where public institutions are increasingly being converted into instruments for opaque financial dealings.
“The Constitution is not a book of suggestions. Section 80 is unequivocal: no money shall be withdrawn from the Consolidated Revenue Fund except in the manner prescribed by the National Assembly. Budgetary appropriation is not a ceremonial exercise; it is the legal authority upon which every kobo of public expenditure rests.
“If, as the IMF has revealed, expenditure amounting to two per cent of Nigeria’s GDP was omitted from the budget process, then Nigerians are entitled to one simple question: Who stole the missing two per cent of our GDP?
“This is no longer an accounting discrepancy. It is a constitutional, legal and moral scandal. Money does not simply disappear from a national budget. Somebody authorised it. Somebody approved it. Somebody spent it. Somebody benefited from it. Nigerians deserve to know who those people are.
“The question before the nation remains simple and unavoidable: Who stole the missing two per cent of Nigeria’s GDP? Until that question is honestly answered, every claim of transparency by this administration will ring hollow,” Atiku stated.
