The Tinubu Media Support Group (TMSG) has accused opposition politicians of manufacturing controversies to damage President Bola Tinubu’s image ahead of the 2027 general election, insisting the strategy would not work.
In a statement signed by its Chairman, Emeka Nwankpa, and Secretary, Dapo Okubanjo, the group claimed the opposition has resorted to hunting for scandal because it recognises that defeating President Tinubu at the polls would be difficult.
It warned that Nigerians should expect continued misrepresentation and the spread of unverified claims about the administration in the coming months.
TMSG said one of the major issues that opposition figures, including former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, are latching on to in recent times is the position of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on the 2026 budget.
Saying, it is aware that the IMF, in a recent report, spoke about what it called a discrepancy of N8.83 trillion or approximately 2% of GDP in the budget, which it said was executed outside formal budget processes, though it acknowledged that the government had been revising the nation’s laws to capture such expenditures.
It noted that the Finance Minister, Mr Taiwo Oyedele, had already responded, clarifying that the N8 trillion expenditures were public spending, which included statutory transfers and intervention funds backed by acts of Parliament, including the capital expenditure approved in separate budgets for some agencies and the Federal Capital Territory by the National Assembly.
TMSG argued that statutory allocations, funding for development commissions, and revenue-collection costs, retained by agencies are routine, recurring features of Nigeria’s budget process, alongside legally backed interventions in areas such as security, infrastructure, and disaster response.
“This is exactly why we find it strange that a former Vice President, whom we expect to be conversant with governance and local laws guiding federal budgets in his eight years in office, would jump into the issue to make political capital out of it. And while Peter Obi’s limited, and most times, flawed grasp of governance laws at the centre may be understandable, it is clear that former Vice President Abubakar was simply being mischievous,” it added.
The group also pushed back on claims by the African Democratic Congress (ADC) that President Tinubu was responsible for acute hunger affecting 17 million Nigerians.
It said the figure originates from a United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP) report describing conditions across nine conflict-affected Northern states, and accused the ADC of misrepresenting that finding as a direct consequence of government policy.
TMSG maintained that the federal government is pushing both military and non-military measures in addressing insecurity in the affected areas, and rejected suggestions that authorities have shown indifference to the crisis, describing such accusations as politically motivated.
