Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has accused the Federal Government of dressing economic decline in bigger naira figures, declaring that the much-celebrated FAAC “boom” is a monetary illusion that collapses once the figures are tested against currency depreciation, inflation, purchasing power and the mounting liabilities of state governments.

In a statement issued by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, Atiku said Nigerians should not be deceived by the spectacle of trillions being announced every month when the naira in which those trillions are denominated has lost enormous value and ordinary citizens are paying substantially more for virtually everything.

“The arithmetic is brutal. In 2019, FAAC distribution was approximately ₦7.85 trillion, worth about $25.6 billion at the prevailing exchange rate. By 2025, FAAC had risen on paper to approximately ₦21.9 trillion, yet its dollar value had fallen to roughly $14.6 billion. So while government parades almost three times as many naira, the underlying dollar value is more than 40 per cent lower.

“That is not an economic miracle. That is money illusion. You cannot batter the currency, allow inflation to ravage purchasing power and then wave bigger naira figures before Nigerians as evidence that the country has become richer. Bigger numbers do not cancel smaller value.”

Atiku said the deception becomes even clearer when translated into the everyday experience of the Nigerian worker, where salaries may have increased nominally while their real value and purchasing power have deteriorated.

“Take the minimum wage as the simplest example. In 2019, ₦30,000 was worth roughly $83. By May 2023, that same ₦30,000 was worth about $65. Today, government boasts that the minimum wage has more than doubled to ₦70,000, yet at an exchange rate of around ₦1,320 to the dollar, that ₦70,000 is worth only about $53. Think about that: the number written on the worker’s payslip has risen from ₦30,000 to ₦70,000, but its dollar value has fallen from about $83 to about $53.

“That is Tinubu’s money illusion in its simplest form. The figure in your hand is bigger, but the value in your pocket is smaller. A worker can earn more naira today and still afford less food, less transport, less electricity, less medicine and less housing than before. Government counts the naira but conveniently refuses to count what the naira can buy.”

Atiku said the proper test of an economy is therefore not the size of the figures announced after FAAC meetings, but what those allocations can actually purchase and what obligations they are capable of meeting.

“If FAAC is truly booming, then where is the boom? Where is it in the price of food? Where is it in transport? Where is it in electricity, healthcare, housing and jobs? Where is it in the purchasing power of salaries? Government cannot become richer on paper while the people become poorer in reality and then expect Nigerians to applaud the contradiction.”

He said the contradiction becomes even more glaring when the debts still carried by states are placed beside claims of unprecedented revenue.

“And here is another question the FAAC cheerleaders must answer: if the states are swimming in unprecedented revenues, why are they still drowning in debt? A September 2026 report based on Debt Management Office data shows that just 12 states whose governors are approaching the end of their tenures carry a combined debt burden of approximately ₦5.3 trillion, comprising ₦2.16 trillion in domestic debt and about $2.33 billion in foreign obligations.

“So spare Nigerians the victory parade. You cannot boast endlessly about unprecedented FAAC allocations while states remain heavily indebted, pension and gratuity obligations persist, contractors chase payments and governments continue to carry enormous liabilities. If the money is as unprecedented as we are constantly told, Nigerians have every right to ask the most elementary question: where has the money gone?

“What is the purpose of a revenue boom if liabilities remain enormous? What is the meaning of record allocations if governments continue borrowing and citizens cannot see a corresponding improvement in their standard of living? Revenue is not an achievement merely because it enters a government account. The achievement is what that revenue buys, what debts it settles, what infrastructure it delivers and how much better it makes the lives of the people.”

Atiku said the administration must also stop pretending that fiscal discipline begins only when ordinary Nigerians require relief, insisting that government expenditure, tax concessions, import waivers, revenue exemptions, duplicated projects, abandoned projects and other areas of potential waste must be subjected to the same scrutiny.

“You cannot defend concessions for the powerful, tolerate waste within government and then suddenly become an apostle of fiscal discipline when ordinary Nigerians ask for relief from unbearable living costs. Fiscal responsibility that operates only against the poor is not reform. It is cruelty dressed up in economic grammar.”

He said Nigerians experience the economy not through spreadsheets, press conferences or FAAC communiqués, but through what happens every time they enter a market, board a bus, pay school fees, buy medicine or attempt to feed their families.

“Nigerians do not eat FAAC figures. They do not pay school fees with percentages. They do not buy medicine with press conferences, and they do not enter buses with government charts. They live in the real economy, and the real economy is measured by what their money can buy.

“More naira is not automatically more prosperity. Bigger figures do not mean bigger value. When supposedly record allocations coexist with weaker purchasing power, enormous debts and outstanding obligations, government cannot simply shout ‘FAAC’ and expect Nigerians to stop asking questions.”

Atiku said the entire argument ultimately comes down to affordability and the quality of life of ordinary Nigerians.

“This is the contrast at the heart of the economic debate: Tinubu made life expensive; Atiku will make life affordable again. Affordability must mean cheaper transportation, lower pressure on food prices, more manageable energy costs, stronger purchasing power and an economy in which the income of ordinary Nigerians can once again meet the necessities of everyday life.

“The test is brutally simple: what is the money worth? What has it delivered? What obligations has it settled? And are Nigerians actually better off?

“Until those questions are answered, this FAAC celebration remains exactly what the numbers show it to be: more naira on paper, less value in reality.”

Signed: 

Phrank Shaibu 

Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication to Atiku Abubakar , Vice President of Nigeria 1999-2007 and Presidential Candidate of the African Democratic Congress. 

9th September, 2026