Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has raised concerns over the $1.07 billion allocated to the health sector in Nigeria’s 2025 budget, urging the federal government to ensure the funds are not misused.
In a statement issued in Abuja, Atiku stressed that effective mechanisms must be implemented to guarantee the funds are used to improve healthcare services, rather than disappearing under questionable circumstances.
Atiku, who was the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate in the last election, warned against repeating past incidents where claims of animals such as snakes, termites, and monkeys were blamed for the disappearance of public funds.
“To this end, the Federal Government has to be deliberate about putting mechanisms in place for public audit and accountability in its US$1.07 billion budgetary appropriation in the health sector,” Atiku said.
He also criticized the federal government for failing to provide detailed information on how the funds will be spent in the primary healthcare sector.
Atiku emphasized the need for transparency in how this significant amount will be allocated, especially when it is sourced from foreign loans and international donor agencies.
“Atiku noted that while healthcare, especially the primary sector, deserves rapid investment to promote access to quality and affordable health services to Nigerians, it would be immoral for the government not to provide extensive details of how the money allotted for the purpose would be dispensed.”
“We have read that the Federal Government has a plan to expend a whooping sum of $1.07 billion in the primary health sector. This amount is in addition to the N2.48 trillion, which had earlier been proposed for the health sector in the initial draft of the budget.”
“This development gets even more troubling when the government equally announced that the $1.07 billion it is adding to the health sector at the sub-national level was mainly sourced through foreign loans and a fraction of it being provided through an international donor agency,” Atiku explained.
He also questioned the government’s lack of commitment to building physical infrastructure with the allocated budget, labeling this as potentially fraudulent.
“The failure of the Federal Government not to commit to a single physical infrastructure in expending the budgetary provision smacks of fraud,” he said. “Claims of animals such as snakes, termites, gorillas, and monkeys swallowing public funds must never be the fate of the funds budgeted for the critical sector of health in the 2025 Budget.”
