By Our Correspondent—
A staggering N8.83 trillion in government spending from 2025 cannot be accounted for in the national budget, according to the latest International Monetary Fund (IMF) consultation report.
The revelation has prompted an explosive response from Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) for the 2027 election, who has accused the Tinubu administration of “grand corruption on an industrial scale” and renewed his call for the President to resign.
Writing on his X (formerly Twitter) account, Obi described the IMF findings as “horrible” and a damning indictment of what he called a pattern of plunder embedded in the government.
“The IMF now reveals that about N8.83 trillion in expenditure undertaken in 2025 is not reflected in the budget,” Obi wrote. “This expenditure is not budgeted and is therefore not under legislative oversight or administrative scrutiny. This is horrible.”
The N8.83 trillion sum, he noted, equates to roughly 2 per cent of Nigeria’s GDP, more than 35 per cent of the entire N23.96 trillion capital project budget for 2025, and exceeds the combined allocations for education (N3.52 trillion) and health (N2.38 trillion).
“If such an amount were properly used and accounted for, it could transform Nigeria’s public health and education sectors. It could create hundreds of cottage industries, provide jobs for thousands of graduates, and build a solid foundation for economic development. But we cannot account for it,” Obi said.
The former Anambra State governor described the missing billions as not an isolated incident but “a pattern of grand corruption that has become part of this administration.”
He warned that “the total disregard of elementary rules of public finance management poses a grave danger to national security and the stability of the Nigerian state.
“The capture of the Nigerian state and the plunder of its resources are actions that undermine the basis of state stability and deepen poverty and state failure.”
Obi argued that the IMF report proves the All Progressives Congress (APC) government is “grossly corrupt, incompetent, and insensitive.”
In the face of escalating poverty and urgent infrastructure needs, he said, a responsible government would have deployed the N8.83 trillion prudently – “but not the Tinubu administration.”
Just days ago, Obi called on President Bola Tinubu to resign over incompetence, lack of capacity, and failure to deliver on campaign promises.
He acknowledged that some saw that demand as excessive, but said the latest corruption revelations make resignation the “only reasonable action.”
He urged Nigerian citizens to “rise within the law and hold this administration to account,” ending with his trademark slogan: “A New Nigeria is Possible.”
The President’s office has yet to respond to the IMF findings or to Obi’s demands. However, the scale of the unreported expenditure has already sparked outrage among civil society groups and opposition figures, with many demanding a full parliamentary inquiry into the missing N8.83 trillion.
