Obi demands accountability over IMF’s ₦8.83tn off-budget spending report

National Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi, has accused President Bola Tinubu’s administration of entrenched corruption, citing the latest findings from the International Monetary Fund on Nigeria’s public finances.

In a post on X on Sunday, Obi alleged that about ₦8.83 trillion in government expenditure undertaken in 2025 was not reflected in the national budget, describing the development as evidence of “grand corruption.”

“The recent report from the IMF consultation further raises concerns about the scale of grand corruption under the Tinubu government.

“The IMF now reveals that about N8.83 trillion in expenditure undertaken in 2025 is not reflected in the budget.

“This expenditure is not budgeted and is therefore not under legislative oversight or administrative scrutiny. This is horrible,” he said.

Obi argued that the amount represented about 2% of Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product, more than 35% of the 2025 capital budget, and exceeded the combined federal allocations to the education and health sectors.

“It is more than the entire combined budget for education (N3.52 trillion) and health (N2.38 trillion). If such an amount is properly used and accounted for, it could transform Nigeria’s public health and education sectors,” he said.

He further claimed that the reported spending reflected a pattern of financial mismanagement under the current administration.

“This is not an isolated incident. This is a pattern of grand corruption that has become part of this administration,” Obi stated.

The former Anambra State governor renewed his earlier call for Tinubu to step down, saying, “With the daily revelations of pervasive corruption in this administration and its total lack of commitment to the welfare and security of Nigerian citizens, the only reasonable action is for President Tinubu to resign from office.”

Obi also urged Nigerians to demand greater accountability from the government.

The comments followed an IMF disclosure that Nigeria left public spending equivalent to about 2% of GDP unreported in recent official budgets, obscuring the country’s true financing needs and making the fiscal deficit appear smaller than it actually was.

Speaking in Lagos, IMF Resident Representative in Nigeria, Christian Ebeke, said, “So far we think that there are about two per cent of GDP of expenditure that were not reported that should be reported and should be recorded, so that this statistical discrepancy will disappear.”

The IMF said the unreported expenditure was linked to major government infrastructure projects executed outside the formal budget framework, warning that the practice complicates fiscal and monetary policy coordination, weakens oversight and transparency, and obscures the true size of Nigeria’s fiscal deficit.

The Fund, however, noted that the Federal Government had begun taking corrective measures, including revising budget laws to formally capture such expenditures while calling for timely implementation reports and greater fiscal transparency.