Atiku raises alarm over N6.44bn 2026 World Cup budget allocation

Former Vice President and presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress, ADC, Atiku Abubakar, has raised alarm over the sum of N6.44 billion allocated in the 2026 budget for ‘Presidential Support Group for the 2026 World Cup Qualifiers’.

Nigeria had already failed to qualify for the World Cup at the time the budget was presented.

Atiku raised the alarm over the development in a statement released on Wednesday by his spokesperson, Phrank Shaibu.

Recall that for weeks now Nigerians have been inundated with the controversy over the Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council, or PFIPC.

On Tuesday, the police arrested Adeniyi Adeyemi, the Director General of the fake agency, which was allocated N1.3 billion in the 2026 budget.

In the statement on Wednesday, Atiku drew attention to the allocation of N6.44 billion in the 2026 budget for the ‘Special Presidential Support Group for the 2026 World Cup Qualifiers.’  

“How does a serious government budget N6.44 billion for presidential support for World Cup qualifiers after the country had already been eliminated? What competition was the money intended to support? Who inserted the provision, who approved it, and who was expected to benefit from an expenditure whose stated purpose had already ceased to exist?” Atiku queried.

He described the allocation as not merely an example of poor judgment but a damning indictment of the integrity of the budgeting process, saying it reinforced public suspicion that the national budget had become a warehouse for dubious expenditures, fiscal waste, and allocations without any defensible public purpose.

Atiku called for an independent probe of Adeyemi’s PFIPC and the N6.44 billion World Cup budget.

“The scandal is not merely that one man allegedly impersonated public authority. The greater scandal is that the Tinubu administration allegedly opened the doors of the Nigerian state to him, allowed him to acquire the appearance and privileges of official legitimacy, and permitted him to interact with institutions and diplomatic interests in the name of the Federal Government,” Atiku added.