IMF, President Tinubu and the transparency challenge

Nigeria's rulers have a history of treating the national treasury as a personal inheritance, a practice that appears to have reached a "fullest flowering" under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu's administration. This critique comes from Moshood Oshunfurewa, who invokes the spirit of the late human rights lawyer Gani Fawehinmi to condemn the current financial situation as "organized, institutionalized, defended-in-law theft of the commonwealth."

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Let us call this what it is. Not ‘fiscal opacity.’ Not ‘off-budget spending.’ Not the polite, bloodless language of the International Monetary Fund. What is happening in Nigeria under Bola Ahmed Tinubu is theft, organized, institutionalized, defended-in-law theft of the commonwealth, executed by a ruling class that has learned to dress looting in the language of governance.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has pointed to a significant financial gap, with its man in Abuja, Christian Ebeke, noting in July 2026 that approximately 2% of Nigeria's GDP in public spending simply vanishes from official budget documents. The article argues that this "off-budget spending" is not a technical footnote but a "declaration of war on the Nigerian people," impacting essential services like healthcare, education, and infrastructure.

The IMF's report described these issues using euphemisms like "off-budget spending and complex financing instruments." However, the author contends that such language is a smokescreen used by those engaged in illicit activities. The masses, it is argued, understand the reality of hunger and empty pots, not the jargon of financial instruments.

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Two percent of GDP is not small change, it is hospitals unbuilt, teachers unpaid, roads that kill commuters, and children who will never see a classroom. It is the difference between a nation that can feed its people and one that cannot.

Further compounding these concerns is the revelation by the Senate Committee on Public Accounts, under Ahmed Wadada, of N210 trillion in discrepancies within the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) between 2017 and 2023. These funds are unaccounted for under categories like "unsubstantiated accrued expenses" and "receivables." The article posits that this is not mere incompetence but a deliberate system designed to funnel the nation's oil wealth into private hands, with officials expressing surprise at the system's effectiveness while the country suffers.

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This is not incompetence. Incompetence does not produce numbers this precise in their imprecision. This is a system functioning exactly as its architects designed it: a machine for converting the nation’s oil wealth into private fortune while the mechanics who built the machine call press conferences to express shock at how well it works.