Atiku warns Tinubu against squandering oil windfall, external reserves

By Omeiza Ajayi

ABUJA: Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has condemned President Bola Tinubu’s economic stewardship, warning that Nigeria risks a catastrophic fiscal reckoning unless the government immediately abandons what he described as the reckless depletion of external reserves to artificially prop up the Naira.

Spewkjng through his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, the former Vice President raised the alarm over a troubling contradiction at the heart of Nigeria’s economy, noting that the country’s external reserves have shed approximately $1.57 billion since March 11, falling to $48.45 billion as of April 24 from $48.72 billion the previous week, even as Nigeria reportedly earned a ₦5 trillion oil windfall within the same period.

“Defending the Naira without fixing productivity, exports, and investor confidence is akin to pouring water into a basket,” Atiku said, dismissing the current management of the currency as “a fragile illusion sustained by burning through national savings.”

The former presidential candidate argued that the persistent drawdown in reserves was unmistakable evidence that the Central Bank of Nigeria CBN was aggressively injecting liquidity into the foreign exchange market not to achieve genuine monetary stability, but to manufacture the appearance of one.

He insisted that no amount of reserve-funded intervention could substitute for the structural economic reforms that alone could restore lasting confidence in the naira.

Atiku described the current situation as a morally indefensible paradox: that an oil windfall driven, in his assessment, not by government ingenuity but by external geopolitical shocks was coinciding with acute suffering for ordinary Nigerians.

He pointed to rising pump prices, soaring transport costs and entrenched inflation as evidence that swelling government revenues were yielding no relief for citizens at the bottom of the economy.

“This paradox is both unjust and unsustainable,” he said.

On the back of those twin concerns, Atiku issued two specific demands of the federal government.

The first was that the windfall must not be redirected into recurrent expenditure or political patronage. He called for structured interventions to cushion the impact of fuel price increases, stabilise food supply chains and protect the most vulnerable Nigerians. “To do otherwise is to profit from the suffering of the people while offering them nothing in return,” he warned.

His second demand was that the government abandon reserve depletion as a naira defence tool and instead channel the windfall into investments with durable economic returns — specifically domestic refining capacity, critical infrastructure, non-oil export promotion and policies designed to restore investor confidence. He was categorical that currency strength built on intervention rather than fundamentals was not strength at all.

“Nigeria’s external reserves are not a political war chest, and this oil windfall is not a license for fiscal indiscipline,” he said. “Nigerians deserve honesty, discipline, and foresight — not illusion, waste, and economic brinkmanship.”

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