Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has condemned the allocation of ₦1.08 trillion to the Federal Cooperative College, Oji River, Enugu State, in the 2026 Appropriation Act, calling for greater accountability over what he described as a questionable budgetary provision.
The former presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) said the allocation raises serious concerns about transparency and fiscal responsibility after civic technology organisation BudgIT, through its Tracka platform, reportedly revealed that the institution was assigned 2,791 capital projects across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory.
According to the budget analysis, the projects include roads, drainage systems, solar streetlights, markets, football pitches, dialysis centres, ambulances, water schemes, recycling plants and empowerment programmes—responsibilities Atiku argued fall outside the statutory mandate of the college.
In a statement issued on Tuesday by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, Atiku said the findings cast doubt on the Federal Government’s repeated claims of prudent public spending.
He described the reported allocation as inconsistent with the administration’s fiscal discipline narrative, particularly at a time Nigerians are grappling with economic reforms, higher taxes and rising living costs.
“Nothing exposes the hollowness of that claim more than a budget that turns a federal cooperative college into one of Nigeria’s largest project-implementing agencies,” he said.
The former vice president questioned the legal framework under which the institution was assigned thousands of projects worth more than ₦1 trillion.
“It defies logic, public finance principles and the institution’s statutory mandate that a college established to promote cooperative education should suddenly become responsible for roads, drainage systems, solar streetlights, markets, football pitches, dialysis centres, ambulances, water schemes, recycling plants, empowerment programmes and thousands of other projects scattered across the federation,” he stated.
Atiku also challenged the Federal Government to explain who approved the projects, the criteria for their allocation, the supervision mechanism and who would ultimately be accountable for their execution.
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He argued that routing such a significant volume of projects through a specialised educational institution undermines confidence in the integrity of the national budget.
According to him, a government urging citizens to endure economic hardship should not be associated with spending arrangements that appear to bypass established public finance principles.
“A government that plans to spend ₦1.08 trillion through a cooperative college cannot claim to be fighting waste or promoting fiscal discipline. It looks less like governance and more like a blueprint to defraud Nigerians,” he said.
The controversy comes amid sustained scrutiny of constituency and intervention projects in federal budgets, with transparency advocates repeatedly calling for stricter oversight of agencies implementing projects beyond their statutory responsibilities.
