African Democratic Congress presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar has raised the alarm over an alleged N6.44 billion budget allocation tied to the 2026 World Cup, a tournament Nigeria failed to qualify for and is not participating in, linking the controversy to what he alleges is a broader attempt by the Tinubu administration to manipulate the narrative around the Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council scandal.
In a statement from Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication Phrank Shaibu, Atiku specifically drew attention to the allocation of N6.44 billion for a Special Presidential Support Group for the 2026 World Cup Qualifiers, despite Nigeria having already been eliminated from qualification in November 2025, roughly a month before the 2026 budget was even presented to the National Assembly. How does a serious government budget N6.44 billion for presidential support for World Cup qualifiers after the country had already been eliminated, he asked, 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 linked the episode to the ongoing PFIPC controversy, describing the recent arrest of self styled council Director General Adeniyi Adeyemi as a calculated move to extract statements that could implicate opposition figures rather than surface the full truth behind the scandal, arguing the controversy cannot be reduced to Adeyemi’s alleged actions alone. The weightier scandal is how an organisation that the presidency now claims was fictitious or non existent allegedly penetrated the highest levels of government, obtained diplomatic recognition and accreditation, recruited more than 300 personnel, secured office accommodation at the National Secretariat, and reportedly received budgetary allocations, including an alleged N1.3 billion provision in the 2026 Appropriation Act, he said, insisting such extensive operations could not have occurred without either active official collaboration or a catastrophic breakdown of oversight across multiple institutions. The scandal is not merely that one man allegedly impersonated public authority, he argued, 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 placed both controversies against what he called mind boggling profligacy and questionable appropriations embedded in the 2026 federal budget, calling the World Cup allocation not merely poor judgment but a damning indictment of the budgeting process itself, one reinforcing public suspicion that the national budget has become a warehouse for dubious expenditure, fiscal waste and allocations without any defensible public purpose, and insisted both matters demand independent, transparent and impartial investigation. He warned the PFIPC scandal has become a major embarrassment to Nigeria’s international reputation and must not be swept under the carpet like other unresolved controversies, including the Humanitarian Affairs Ministry scandal, questions over refinery rehabilitation spending, and various disputed budget allocations, accusing the administration of planning to twist the facts, absolve government officials who ought to answer questions, and manufacture a politically convenient story against the opposition.
