Reported by: Ijeoma G | Edited by: Oravbiere Osayomore Promise.
The United States Government has dealt the Tinubu administration a brutal diplomatic blow, declaring that Nigeria is not making significant progress in fiscal transparency and accusing the country of hiding its revenues, failing to publish public procurement contracts, and operating a supreme audit institution that does not meet international standards of independence. The assessment, contained in the US Department of State's 2026 Fiscal Transparency Report published on Tuesday, August 11, 2026, is a damning indictment of a government that has repeatedly promised to clean up Nigeria's finances but appears to be running a budget operation that is opaque, dishonest, and fundamentally out of touch with reality.
The US report makes for uncomfortable reading for President Bola Tinubu, who has built his administration's reputation on a promise of "Renewed Hope" and economic reform. According to the State Department, while Nigeria did make some key fiscal documents available to the public, significant shortcomings remain in the disclosure of budgetary information and the management of public finances. The government made its enacted budget and end-of-year report widely and easily accessible, including online, but it failed to publish its executive budget proposal within a reasonable period. That failure, the US government said, limits the ability of citizens and other stakeholders to properly scrutinise government spending plans before they are implemented.
But the criticism goes much deeper than timing. The report stated that Nigeria's budget documents did not provide a substantially complete picture of the government's revenues and expenditures, nor did they break down expenditures to support executive offices in the budget. In plain English, the Nigerian government is spending billions of naira without telling Nigerians exactly where the money is coming from or where it is going. The US government further raised concerns about discrepancies between Nigeria's approved budget and the actual revenues and expenditures recorded during implementation. “Actual revenues and expenditures did not reasonably correspond to those in the enacted budget,” the report stated. That finding raises fresh questions about the accuracy of government projections and the level of transparency surrounding budget implementation.
The report also savaged Nigeria's supreme audit institution, stating that it did not meet international standards of independence and did not publish substantive reports, although it had access to the entire executed budget. An audit body that is not independent and does not publish its findings is, in effect, no audit body at all. It is a rubber stamp for a government that appears determined to keep its financial operations hidden from public scrutiny.
Public procurement was another major area of concern. The US government said Nigeria did not publish accessible information on public procurement contracts. That means that billions of naira in government contracts are being awarded without the public being able to see who is getting the money, for what purpose, or whether the deals are being done fairly. In a country where corruption is endemic, the absence of transparent procurement processes is a licence for theft.
The US report did acknowledge some areas of progress. Nigeria's sovereign wealth fund had a sound legal framework and disclosed its source of funding and general approach to withdrawals. The government also specified in law the criteria and procedures for awarding natural resource extraction contracts and licences and followed existing regulations in practice. But these are small mercies in a report that is otherwise a devastating critique of Nigeria's fiscal governance.
The US government subsequently outlined specific steps Nigeria could take to improve its fiscal transparency. It recommended that the Nigerian government begin by making its executive budget proposal widely and easily accessible to the public, including online. It also called on the government to provide a more comprehensive disclosure of its finances by providing in the budget a substantially complete picture of the government's revenues and expenditures. Another recommendation was for Nigeria to improve the level of detail contained in its budget by breaking down expenditures to support executive offices in the budget. The US government further urged Nigeria to ensure that implementation of its budgets more closely reflects approved spending and revenue projections.
The findings are significant given the importance of transparent budgeting, public procurement, and independent auditing to accountability in the management of public resources. The United States has effectively told the world that Nigeria's budget is a work of fiction – a document that bears little relation to the actual revenues and expenditures of the state. The report has also exposed the Tinubu administration's failure to deliver on its promise of fiscal transparency, and it has handed the opposition a powerful weapon ahead of the 2027 elections.
For the Nigerian people, the US report is a confirmation of what they have long suspected: that their government is spending their money in the dark, awarding contracts without scrutiny, and operating an audit system that is neither independent nor effective. The question now is whether the Tinubu administration will take the US recommendations seriously and finally open its books, or whether it will continue to hide behind a wall of opacity while the country's finances bleed dry.
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