Former Vice President and Presidential Candidate of the African Democratic Congress ADC, Atiku Abubakar, has said the International Monetary Fund, IMF’s disclosure that Nigeria omitted public expenditure equivalent to two per cent of its Gross Domestic Product GDP from recent budgets has exposed what appears to be a deeply entrenched system of institutional corruption under the President Bola Tinubu administration.

In a statement issued by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, Atiku said 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.

He maintained that until the question of who stole the missing two per cent of Nigeria’s GDP is honestly answered, every claim of transparency by the administration will ring hollow. Nigeriansports coverage

“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 Section 80 is unequivocal: no money shall be withdrawn from the Consolidated Revenue Fund except in the manner prescribed by the National Assembly.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”, he declared.

Atiku said the revelation reinforces growing concerns that the PFIPC affair was not an isolated incident but part of a wider pattern of institutional capture and abuse of public finance.

He said; “The discovery that a fictitious agency found its way into official government processes and budgetary allocations should alarm every patriotic Nigerian. Now, the IMF tells us that expenditure equivalent to two per cent of our GDP was kept outside the budget. These are not disconnected events. Together, they point to a dangerous culture of institutional corruption,” he said.

He noted that while the Federal Ministry of Health reportedly received only ₦36 million in releases for critical health interventions despite a budgetary appropriation of over ₦218 billion, the PFIPC, which the Presidency now claims never existed, was reportedly allocated about ₦1.3 billion.