IMF’s extrabudgetary spending claims spark fresh calls for Tinubu’s resignation

Recent disclosures by the International Monetary Fund regarding massive off-budget expenditures have intensified political headwinds for President Bola Tinubu, prompting Peter Obi to renew demands for the president’s immediate resignation.

The controversy centers on macroeconomic revelations by Christian Ebeke, the IMF’s resident representative in Nigeria, who disclosed on Wednesday that the federal government engaged in extrabudgetary spending equivalent to 2 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product. According to the IMF, this glaring discrepancy indicates that Nigeria’s true fiscal deficit and corresponding borrowing requirements significantly outstrip official government figures.

Seizing on these fiscal red flags, Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), issued a statement on Sunday framing the IMF’s findings as undeniable evidence of systemic plunder. He highlighted that the estimated N8.83 trillion in unrecorded expenditure for 2025 bypassed legislative oversight and administrative scrutiny entirely, describing the fiscal management as a severe breach of public trust.

To contextualize the scale of the financial bypass, Obi pointed out that the N8.83 trillion represents over 35 percent of Nigeria’s N23.96 trillion capital budget for 2025, eclipsing the total actual funds disbursed for capital projects during the fiscal year. Furthermore, the opaque expenditure overshadows the combined statutory allocations for critical human capital development, specifically education at N3.52 trillion and healthcare at N2.38 trillion.

“It is more than the entire combined budget for education (N3.52 trillion) and health (N2.38 trillion),” the former governor of Anambra state said.

“If such an amount is properly used and accounted for, it could transform Nigeria’s public health and education sectors. It could create hundreds of cottage industries that can provide jobs for thousands of graduates and build a solid foundation for economic development. But we cannot account for it. This is not an isolated incident. This is a pattern of grand corruption that has become part of this administration.

“We have a lot to worry about regarding the state of corruption under President Tinubu. The sort of corruption that is ingrained in total disregard of elementary rules of public finance management poses a grave danger to national security and the stability of the Nigerian state

The intending 2027 presidential candidate argued that prudent deployment of such capital could have fundamentally restructured Nigeria’s public infrastructure and catalyzed job creation through the establishment of cottage industries. Instead, he warned that this pattern of opaque public finance management threatens macroeconomic stability, deepens systemic poverty, and undermines the foundational stability of the state.

Reiterating his earlier demands for a change in leadership, Obi stated that the administration’s apparent incompetence and total lack of commitment to civilian welfare leave resignation as the only viable recourse for the president.

He urged the electorate to demand rigorous accountability within the ambits of the law, arguing that the collapse of elementary due process necessitates immediate pushback against the rampant looting of public coffers.
The fiscal transparency crisis has increasingly drawn condemnation from other prominent political figures.

On Saturday, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar weighed in on the controversy, charging the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) alongside the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) to launch a comprehensive probe into the extrabudgetary allegations.