African Democratic Congress (ADC)
presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, has faulted the Federal Government’s allocation of the sum of N6.44 billion to the “Presidential Support Group for the 2026 World Cup Qualifiers” in the 2026 budget, calling for an independent investigation.
The former Vice President condemned the development on Wednesday in a statement released by his spokesperson, Phrank Shaibu.
According to Atiku, the budget was presented by the current administration after Nigeria’s Super Eagles had already failed to qualify for the World Cup.
He also referenced the N1.3 billion allegedly allocated in the 2026 budget to a fake agency, the Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council (PFIPC), whose self-acclaimed Director-General, Adeniyi Adeyemi, was arrested on Tuesday.
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Speaking via the statement, Atiku queried the “Special Presidential Support Group for the 2026 World Cup Qualifiers” initiative, saying: “How does a serious government budget N6.44 billion for presidential support for World Cup qualifiers after the country had already been eliminated? 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?”
He further described the allocation as not merely an example of poor judgement but a damning indictment of the integrity of the budgeting process, saying it reinforced public suspicion that the national budget had become a warehouse for dubious expenditures, fiscal waste, and allocations without any defensible public purpose.
Atiku then called for an independent probe of Adeyemi’s PFIPC and the N6.44 billion World Cup budget.
He added: “The scandal is not merely that one man allegedly impersonated public authority. 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.”