N1.3 Billion for Non-Existent Agency: Who Is Fooling Who?

Kolawole Oluwadare, the Deputy Director of SERAP, has stated clearly on Arise News today that President Tinubu is complicit to the extent that he signed the 2026 Appropriation Act containing over N1.3 billion for an agency the Presidency itself now says does not exist. The Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council and the Presidential Economic Advisory Council got this allocation, yet nobody in government can explain what these bodies do or where the money went.

Oluwadare pointed out that the Presidency and the National Assembly have both failed to give Nigerians enough facts. He said, "The President signing on the appropriation bill that becomes an act, makes him also part of the process." He added that this is not necessarily fraud by the President personally, but it is a clear failure of systems and institutions. Every institution that was supposed to check this allocation has failed the Nigerian people.

SERAP has now sent a Freedom of Information request to the National Assembly demanding records of committee proceedings, minutes, and budget documents. If the National Assembly does not respond within seven days, SERAP will go to court. The question is simple: If the Presidency can claim an agency does not exist after allocating N1.3 billion to it, how many other ghost agencies are hiding in this budget? Who is going to answer for this?