Atiku, now the ADC presidential candidate, said on Saturday that the Tinubu administration must publish a full breakdown of what NNPC claimed from the Federation and who collected it. The statement was issued by Phrank Shaibu, Director of Strategic Communication of the ADC Presidential Campaign Council, who described the disclosures as a matter of urgent public accountability.
₦3.1 trillion went to the Ministry of Defence in 2025. NNPC’s claim on the Federation for the same period was ₦11.2 trillion. Atiku said the contrast between those two figures exposed a pattern of priorities that ordinary Nigerians, who are still afraid to travel and waiting for children to return safely from school, have been left to absorb. He noted that despite the scale of security spending, kidnappings and highway attacks have continued to rise across several states, including Kaduna and Plateau.
“A mother should not have to pray her child survives the journey to school while her government cannot plainly explain the billions it spends on security,” Atiku said in the statement. “Tinubu must answer to the people living with these choices.”
NNPC’s 2024 accounts had recorded roughly ₦17.5 trillion across different claims on the Federation, including petrol under-recovery and receivables tied to advances and asset protection. By 2025, that figure shifted to ₦11.2 trillion in other receivables, according to the statement. Neither total, Atiku said, tells Nigerians what was paid for pipeline surveillance, which routes were covered under those arrangements, or who collected the money.
The former vice president pointed specifically to Tantita Security Services. Tantita, he said, holds a pipeline security contract from the government while its founder has deployed campaign vehicles in support of Tinubu’s re-election bid. Atiku asked the president to disclose whether any contractor receiving federal funds has also provided money, vehicles, or other support to his campaign.
“Look at the company Tinubu keeps,” Atiku said. The Chagourys’ company, he noted, holds the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway contract, awarded through what the government described as restricted bidding rather than an open public tender. The highway project, estimated to cost over ₦15 trillion, stretches approximately 700 kilometers along Nigeria’s southern coast. Atiku demanded publication of the bid invitations, competing offers, evaluation records, and the signed contract.
Footage showing the Minister of Works greeting a member of the Chagoury family as “my chairman” was cited in the statement as a further reason for disclosure. Atiku said a minister’s obligation runs to the Nigerian public, not to any private contractor with a government deal.
“Nigerians will not tighten their belts while the president’s associates collect contracts and the money behind his campaign remains hidden,” Atiku said, according to the statement issued by Shaibu.
President Tinubu returned from a four-week stay in Europe, described by the Presidency as a working vacation, and told journalists he had enjoyed himself. Asked about his health, he said he was “ready to kick, ready to walk.” Atiku’s campaign said those remarks showed how far removed the president was from the daily conditions most Nigerians face.
“The roads are bad. The economy is bad. There is no light. There is no safety. Families are hungry. Yet Tinubu calls this progress,” Atiku said in the statement released Saturday. He said he intended to contest the 2027 presidential election on a platform of reversing the cost-of-living crisis, pointing to inflation figures that have kept food prices beyond the reach of millions of households.
Atiku said any government that asks citizens to endure hardship must account publicly for every naira it claims on the public purse. He called on Tinubu to publish all contracts, payments, and outcomes connected to NNPC’s security-related receivables.
“Nigerians have had enough of hardship dressed up as reform,” Atiku said. “Tinubu made life expensive. I will make Nigeria affordable again.” His campaign said 2027 would bring the current administration’s tenure to a close. No response from the presidency was included in the ADC statement released on Saturday.
