Breaking: Atiku Explains What Should Trouble Every Nigerian in Tinubu's Economy
- Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar called the ₦266bn net capital outflow a confidence verdict on Tinubu's economy
- Foreign investors pulled out ₦779.43bn from Nigerian equities between January and July 2026, far exceeding the ₦513.36bn they brought in
- Atiku's aide, Phrank Shaibu, linked the outflow to soaring government borrowing and shrinking credit to the private sector
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Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has attacked President Bola Tinubu's economic record, saying a surge in foreign capital outflows from Nigeria's equities market is proof that investors have lost faith in the current administration.
The remarks came in a statement issued on September 8, 2026, by Phrank Shaibu, Atiku's Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, and sent to Legit.ng.
Source: Twitter
According to Nigerian Exchange data cited in the statement, foreign investors brought ₦513.36 billion into Nigeria's equities market between January and July 2026 but withdrew ₦779.43 billion over the same period. The resulting net outflow of ₦266.07 billion was recorded across every single month in the period. Shaibu noted that the figure is about 11.7 times the ₦22.68 billion net outflow recorded in the corresponding period of 2023.
Government borrowing and the private sector
Shaibu also raised concerns about the federal government's domestic borrowing, which he said rose by 90.5 per cent to ₦24.7 trillion in eight months, with credit to government growing more than four times faster than credit to the private sector.
Atiku argued that this crowding-out effect is strangling Nigerian businesses at a time when households are already under pressure from high food prices and rising transport costs.
The statement said investors are guided by fundamentals such as policy consistency, inflation trends, purchasing power, regulatory predictability, and the ability to earn real returns, and that their continued exit from the Nigerian market reflects poorly on all those counts.
Atiku drew a contrast between what he described as Tinubu's "economics of government consumption" and his own proposed approach centred on private-sector growth and household affordability.
Shaibu signed off the statement by describing Atiku as Vice President of Nigeria from 1999 to 2007 and presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC).
Source: Legit.ng
