Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has called on President Bola Tinubu’s government to publish a full breakdown of the N11.2 trillion that the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited recorded in its 2025 accounts as receivables from the Federation, and to disclose whether government contractors are funding his 2027 re-election campaign.
The demand came in a statement issued on Sunday, 4 October 2026, by Phrank Shaibu, Director of Strategic Communication of the ADC Presidential Campaign Council. In it, Atiku said Nigerians could not tell from the published totals how much went to pipeline surveillance, who was paid, for what work and with what result.
The figure at the centre of the dispute comes from NNPC’s audited financial statements for 2025. The company recorded N11.201 trillion under “other receivables from the Federation”, up about 27 per cent from N8.840 trillion a year earlier. The accounts describe the item as covering advance payments to the Federation and the cost of protecting oil and gas assets. A receivable is a sum the company says it is owed, not cash it has paid out, so the figure should not be read as N11.2 trillion spent on security alone.
The broader picture in the accounts is contested. In 2024, NNPC recorded about N17.5 trillion in total claims on the Federation, made up of roughly N8.67 trillion in energy security costs and N8.84 trillion in other receivables. The company’s notes state that no fresh energy security expense was recognised in 2025, with the N11.2 trillion sitting under the separate “other receivables” line. NNPC maintains the costs are statutory obligations it carries as supplier of last resort under the Petroleum Industry Act, rather than a return of fuel subsidy.
Atiku set the sum against the country’s defence spending. He said the Ministry of Defence received about N3.1 trillion in 2025, so the NNPC receivable was more than three times that allocation, while acknowledging in the same statement that the two figures sit in different accounting categories. “Why can this government explain the need to protect a pipeline, but struggle to assure Nigerians that their own lives will be protected?” he asked, pointing to kidnappings on highways and attacks near schools.
The former vice president widened the argument to the firms holding major government contracts. He named Tantita Security Services, which holds a pipeline surveillance contract in the Niger Delta, and said its founder had sent out vehicles campaigning for the President. He also questioned the award of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway to Hitech Construction Company, linked to the Chagoury family, which he said was handed out without open public tender. “Show us the invitations. Show us the competing bids. Show us the evaluation. Show us the contract,” he said.
Atiku provided no evidence linking any payment under those contracts to campaign activity, and the allegation of a connection remains an assertion rather than a documented finding. The government’s position on the highway is already on record: the Minister of Works, David Umahi, has defended the award as the product of restricted bidding, arguing that the Public Procurement Act permits selection on competence and citing the company’s track record on Lagos coastal reclamation. Tantita’s engagement has also drawn support from the National Assembly, where more than 300 lawmakers backed the continued use of the company for pipeline surveillance after a roundtable earlier in the year.
The contracts themselves are long standing points of controversy. The Lagos-Calabar highway, a roughly 700 kilometre project estimated at about 11 billion dollars, has faced questions over procurement transparency since its award in 2024. Tantita’s surveillance role, tied to the former militant leader Government Ekpemupolo, known as Tompolo, has been debated since 2022 over both its cost and its wisdom.
The statement closed on the President’s recent conduct. Atiku contrasted the demand that households tighten their belts with Tinubu’s remarks on returning to Lagos on Tuesday, 29 September, after about four weeks in Europe on what the Presidency called a working vacation. Asked how the trip went, the President said, “I enjoyed myself,” and, pressed on his health, added, “Ready to kick, ready to walk. There’s nothing wrong.” Atiku described the comments as tone deaf given the hardship many Nigerians face.
The exchange is the latest in a sustained quarrel between the two men over oil sector accounting ahead of 2027. Atiku and the ADC have repeatedly pressed the government to reconcile the trillions recorded in NNPC’s books, while the Presidency has said the country has stopped spending money it does not have and has defended the reforms as necessary. What neither the accounts nor the political statements settle is the detail Atiku is asking for: a line by line account of what the receivable represents, which remains unpublished.