“Campaign financing scheme dressed up as infrastructure?” Atiku questions Tinubu’s $20.52bn, €1.045bn loan request

ADC presidential candidate and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has demanded that President Bola Tinubu prove his request for fresh loans of $20.52 billion and €1.045 billion is for the public good and not for his 2027 campaign, The Sun reports.

Tinubu wrote to the National Assembly on Tuesday seeking approval for external loans to finance projects in infrastructure, agriculture and other sectors. In a statement by Phrank Shaibu, director of strategic communication for the ADC Presidential Campaign Council, Atiku said the president listed broad sectors but gave no project-by-project account of costs, locations or contractors.

Highway concerns

Atiku alleged that the funds could be channelled through the Lagos–Calabar Coastal Highway, now rerouted inland, to political campaigners and favoured contractors. He said he warned on October 12 that Tinubu was reportedly preparing to borrow up to $20 billion tied to the highway, and that he asked the president to confirm or deny it and publish the accounts. According to Atiku, Tinubu did neither, and the new request shows his warning was vindicated.

He questioned the timing, noting an election is barely 12 weeks away, and asked whether the request was “a campaign financing scheme dressed up as infrastructure.”

Calls on lawmakers and lenders

Atiku urged the National Assembly to publish the loan proposal and supporting documents and to scrutinise them rigorously before any decision. He said lawmakers should approve nothing until the president publishes every project, contract, cost, contractor, loan term and repayment obligation, and that none should sign what he called a blank cheque against Nigeria’s future.

He also put local and international lenders on notice. Any loan to what he called a winding-down administration, he said, must meet all constitutional, statutory and due process requirements. If he becomes president, he said, one of his first duties would be to investigate every kobo borrowed, especially in Tinubu’s final year, and any borrowing obtained without proper authorisation would be challenged.

Atiku said families already struggling with the cost of living should not carry debts they did not approve, and that voters could reject such borrowing at the ballot box.