By Omeiza Ajayi, Abuja Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has accused the ruling All Progressives Congress APC of dodging accountability over a ₦12.8 trillion Service-Wide Vote SWV in the 2026 Appropriation Act, saying the ruling party’s angry reaction to questions about the allocation betrays a guilty conscience rather than confidence in its own budget. APC had, in a statement on Wednesday, said Atiku had become more disoriented and misguided than ever before in the history of his presidential ambitions, adding that he advanced no facts to support his claim of malfeasance beyond conjecture calculated to inflame and mislead Nigerians. However, Atiku’s strategic media associate, Olusola Sanni, said in a counter on Wednesday that the presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress ADC was not contesting the legitimacy of the service-wide vote as a budgetary tool but demanding answers on why the figure has surged by roughly 1,918 per cent in two years, from ₦638.34 billion in 2024 to its current level.
At the heart of the dispute is a question Sanni said the APC’s National Publicity Secretary, Felix Morka, avoided entirely in his earlier defence of the administration: what unforeseen emergency could justify an increase of that scale within such a short period? “What emergency or unforeseen expenditure justifies increasing the service-wide vote from ₦638.34 billion in 2024 to over ₦12.8 trillion in 2026? That is an increase of approximately 1,918 per cent in barely two years,” Wanna said, dismissing the APC’s contingency-fund defence as a “lazy excuse”.
Sanni argued that an allocation of that magnitude now rivals the combined budgets of major sectors, including defence, education, healthcare and works, and said the absence of clearly named projects under the vote deepens suspicion that it has drifted from its original purpose. “A contingency fund without specificity, accountability or transparency ceases to be a contingency provision and becomes precisely what Nigerians fear—a slush fund waiting to be abused,” he said. The statement also linked the current dispute to a pattern of budget controversies it said has trailed the Bola Tinubu administration, including duplicated line items, unclear religious project allocations and unnamed palace renovation spending, all of which it claimed have weakened public trust in the federal appropriation process.
By Omeiza Ajayi ABUJA: The ruling All Progressives Congress APC has faulted former Vice President Atiku Abubakar over his allegation that the 2026 budgetary Service-Wide Vote, SWV, was set aside to fund President Bola Tinubu’s 2027 reelection campaign, describing the claim as either mischievous or a reflection of ignorance of basic public finance principles. In a statement issued in Abuja on Wednesday, the party said the Presidential Candidate of the African Democratic Congress ADC had become more disoriented and misguided than ever before in the history of his presidential ambitions, adding that Atiku advanced no facts to support his claim beyond conjecture calculated to inflame and mislead Nigerians. APC explained that a Service-Wide Vote is a long-established budgetary mechanism designed to cater for government-wide obligations and unforeseen expenditures that arise after the annual budget has been passed, and not a secret fund or illegal slush account as alleged by Atiku.
“You would think that a former Vice President, a man with the longest-standing ambition to be president of Nigeria, would understand the concept and instrument of a ‘Service-Wide Vote’, an elementary principle of public finance. A Service-Wide Vote is a long-established and widely used budgetary mechanism designed to cater for government-wide obligations and unforeseen expenditures that arise after the annual budget has been passed. Similar contingency arrangements exist in virtually all major economies and democracies of the world.
A Service-Wide Vote is not a secret fund or an illegal slush account, as Atiku has baselessly and recklessly alleged,” said party spokesman, Felix Morka. The APC spokesman said Atiku’s own record in government made his attempt to lecture Nigerians on fiscal responsibility ironic, describing his public service history as mired in corruption and profligacy. “As a serial presidential contestant, Atiku has never once articulated a clear vision or coherent plan for Nigeria’s development but has remained a petty peddler of fake news and doomsday narratives.
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