A prominent political support group has accused Nigeria’s opposition parties of intentionally twisting economic data and humanitarian reports to undermine President Bola Tinubu ahead of the 2027 election.
The Tinubu Media Support Group (TMSG) claimed that opposition figures have resorted to “scandal shopping” after realizing the difficulty of defeating the president in the next polls.
In a joint statement issued by group chairman Emeka Nwankpa and secretary Dapo Okubanjo, the group urged the public to be wary of unverified information circulating in the political space.
The row centers heavily on recent political friction involving high-profile opposition leaders, including former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar and former presidential candidate Peter Obi.
The TMSG pointed to opposition criticism over an International Monetary Fund (IMF) report regarding the 2026 budget. The IMF had highlighted an ₦8.83trn discrepancy, representing roughly 2% of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which it noted was executed outside formal budget lines.
The presidency’s support group defended the government’s fiscal management, noting that the Minister of Finance, Taiwo Oyedele, had already clarified the situation. They insisted the expenditure consisted of legitimate public spending, including statutory transfers and development interventions approved by parliament.
“These are regular, annual developments tied to the Nigerian budget as a first-line charge,” the TMSG statement said, expressing surprise that a former vice-president would attempt to gain political capital from standard budgetary procedures.
The group also dismissed a recent claim by the opposition African Democratic Congress (ADC) that President Tinubu’s policies had plunged 17 million Nigerians into acute hunger.
The TMSG countered that the opposition had willfully misrepresented a United Nations World Food Programme report. The UN study had actually attributed the food security crisis to long-standing insecurity across nine conflict-affected northern states, rather than federal economic reforms.
The group maintained that while the government continues to use both military and non-kinetic strategies to pacify these conflict zones, it remains “mischievous” for rival politicians to accuse the administration of indifference simply to advance their electoral prospects.
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