Atiku Calls Out Tinubu Over ₦501bn Power Bond, Demands Full List of Beneficiaries
- Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar condemned the Tinubu administration over what he described as an unaccounted cycle of power sector borrowing
- APGC Executive Secretary Dr. Joy Ogaji disclosed that the ₦501 billion bond has not been fully disbursed, directly contradicting repeated government claims
- Atiku demanded that the Federal Government publish names, amounts, and payment dates for every generation company that received funds from the bond
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has called on the Federal Government to immediately publish a full breakdown of its power sector debt payments, following disclosures by the Association of Power Generation Companies (APGC) that cast serious doubt on official claims of settlement.
In a statement cited by Legit.ng and released on Wednesday, July 1, 2026, by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, Atiku said the revelations by APGC Executive Secretary Dr. Joy Ogaji amount to a collapse of the Tinubu administration's position on the matter.
Source: UGC
Dr. Ogaji had disclosed that the widely publicised ₦501 billion bond had not been fully disbursed to generation companies, despite the government's repeated assertions to the contrary.
She also publicly challenged the federal government to release the full list of beneficiaries, the amounts paid to each company, and the dates those payments were made.
Atiku quoted Dr. Ogaji's characterisation of the government's payments as "like rubbing oil on a crying child's mouth to imply that he had eaten," saying the analogy captured the administration's pattern of making headline-grabbing announcements that deliver little in practice.
Atiku: A cycle of bonds with no resolution
The former vice president traced what he described as a sequence of interventions that have yielded no visible improvement: a ₦590 billion promise, then the ₦501 billion bond celebrated as a breakthrough, then talk of a multi-trillion-naira settlement programme, and now another debt package under consideration. Throughout this period, he noted, the generation companies themselves insist the liabilities have continued to grow.
Atiku said the Federal Government must answer why additional interventions keep becoming necessary if earlier ones genuinely resolved the debts, and why the creditors are publicly disputing the minister's claims.
He described these as industry questions that warrant official answers, not opposition posturing.
He called on the National Assembly, the Auditor-General of the Federation, and all institutions responsible for safeguarding public funds to demand a comprehensive public audit of every power sector intervention floated under the current administration.
Accountability over announcements
Atiku argued that the failure to account for previously borrowed funds before seeking fresh borrowing is both a fiscal and a moral problem, given that future generations will bear the cost of today's debts.
He said governance cannot be reduced to ceremonies and bond launches while electricity generation remains constrained, businesses continue to shoulder enormous independent power costs, and ordinary citizens pay high tariffs for unreliable supply.
He warned that public trust cannot survive a government that repeatedly revises its figures and issues statements contradicted by the very beneficiaries it claims to have paid, closing with the observation that history will judge this administration not by the number of bonds it issued, but by whether those bonds brought electricity to Nigerian homes.
Tinubu told to resign
Earlier, Legit.ng reported that Fred Agbedi, the minority leader of the House of Representatives, on Wednesday night, June 17, strongly faulted President Bola Tinubu's failure to visit Oyo state.
The ranking lawmaker condemned the continued captivity of schoolchildren and teachers abducted in mid-May in Oyo state, accusing the federal government of failing to take decisive action against mass kidnappings.
Source: Legit.ng
