Tinubu Under Fire on Three Fronts: Atiku Demands Resignation Over PFIPC Scandal, ₦12.8 Trillion Budget Row, and Washington Lobbying War

Nigeria’s political temperature spiked Tuesday as former Vice President Atiku Abubakar launched a multi-pronged assault on President Bola Tinubu’s credibility—demanding his resignation over conflicting official accounts of a controversial investment council, challenging a record ₦12.8 trillion budget allocation, and facing a fierce counterattack over his own Washington lobbying operation.

Atiku called for Tinubu to “apologise to Nigerians and resign” after the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation gave contradictory testimonies before the House of Representatives regarding the Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council (PFIPC).

“When two of your most sensitive financial authorities publicly contradict each other, no serious leader needs a clairvoyant to know his administration is trapped in a web of deception,” Atiku stated through spokesman Phrank Shaibu. He demanded the Attorney-General break his silence and urged lawmakers to summon both officials under oath for a joint appearance.

Simultaneously, Atiku’s camp challenged the 2026 Service-Wide Vote, which ballooned 1,918% from ₦638.34 billion in 2024 to ₦12.8 trillion—now rivaling combined defence, education, healthcare, and works budgets.

“A contingency fund without specificity ceases to be contingency and becomes a slush fund,” said associate Olusola Sanni, demanding a full project-by-project breakdown.

The APC fired back through spokesman Felix Morka, branding Atiku “more disoriented than ever” and dismissing the vote as standard fiscal practice. Morka launched a personal broadside: “The ghost of his sordid past haunts Atiku,” accusing him of fiscal hypocrisy and peddling “fake news and doomsday narratives.”

A third front opened over Atiku’s reported $1.2 million lobbying contract with Von Batten-Montague-York, which circulated decades-old DOJ records on Tinubu’s civil forfeiture case to Trump administration officials and Congress.

In a blistering rebuttal, UN ECOSOC representative Olufemi Aduwo called it “political desperation rather than legal substance,” noting civil forfeiture is not criminal conviction. “No amount of lobbying can substitute for a criminal conviction that simply does not exist,” he wrote, challenging Atiku to instead litigate Obasanjo’s memoir allegations against him.

With 2027 approaching, the exchanges signal a no-holds-barred campaign season where budget transparency, institutional credibility, and decades-old legal shadows will all be weaponized.