₦airaland Forum

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.

Amah70:
Inflation rate that hit the sky immediately after Tinubu got sworn in as president of Nigeria made the Naira literally worthless

markfem2:
There’s nothing genuine about this administration.
Tinubu’s regime is so horrible that if he tells you good morning you must go out to confirm if it’s actually morning.

Alliswell248:
FG has been pegging the naira value for years with scarce dollars. Naira can never be 400 to a dollar. artificial price

Alliswell248:
Pure trash.

But your co travellers didnt tell us how you have been borrowing to keep the exchange rate low . Also how previous government with the exception of Baba Obasanjo have been using subsidy to deplete our fx reserve.

Obasanjo grew it to 52 usd billion, all thanks to debt forgiveness from Paris club

Yar adua and Gej depleted it to under 30 usd billion , aii in 8 years. FG was borrowing to pay salary in 2014.

Buhari kuku finished to to under , that airlines could not remit their money to their countries.

President Tinubu cancelled it, states now has money, infrastructures every where like mtn, now fx is over 54 billion usd

Alliswell248:
FG has been pegging the naira value for years with scarce dollars. Naira can never be 400 to a dollar. artificial price

ogododo:
https://dailytrust.com/tinubus-faac-boom-is-a-scam-atiku/

tfelicityk:
Why the silence all this while? Let assumed he was gathering informations but why few months to the 2027 election ahead that he is spitting fire which are either true or false.

He had been a VP. I expected him to have designed a model to take Nigeria high as he presumed.

michlins:
If government pays salaries based on current realities, the whole government will go broke.

APC is parading governors being able to pay salaries as achievement because people are significantly underpaid and that's why the economy is feeling extremely tight. Purchasing power has been eroded

Kushites:
BECAUSE HE ONLY DISCOVERED AI CHATGPT VERY RECENTLY.

nedu666:
So if another president comes in and devalue the currency to 2500 and tell you that the price under tinubu is an artificial price. What will you say

nedu666:
Let tinubu use chatgp. Abi did atiku invent chapgp

ratcock:
Atiku Abubakar is firing from all cylinders.
I must commend him for rising up to the occasion by bringing this notorious administration to account.