Former Vice President and presidential candidate of the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP in the 2023 general election, Atiku Abubakar, has warned public officials to ensure judicious use of the $1.07b appropriation for the health sector in the 2025 budget.

Atiku emphasized that Nigerians must not witness another episode of missing public funds being attributed to animals, saying, the money must not be swallowed by “snakes, termites, gorillas and monkeys.”

In a statement, Atiku noted that recent claims of missing public funds allegedly swallowed by different animals were never investigated or punished to serve as deterrence.

He stressed that against the backdrop of dwindling resources and withdrawal of support by donor agencies in certain areas of the country’s healthcare services, it is imperative that every kobo budgeted for the sector is well utilized.

“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.

“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.

“In other words, Nigeria is expected to pay these loans back and it is required that the Nigerian people know the details of these loans and that its expenditure must be conveyed in a policy envelope that will explain how it will be spent.”

Atiku added, “For an administration that has been known to have a deficiency of trust in the administration of its humanitarian services, Nigerians cannot take the risk of accepting a shoddy explanation on a budgetary provision that lacks a mechanism of tracking how the money is to be expended.

“It is difficult for Nigerians to believe this current Federal Government given its proclivity to alternative truths – especially on their claims about investments in the social infrastructure.

“It is worrisome that the Tinubu administration continues to lie to Nigerians on the status of our tertiary hospitals when the sorry state of those hospitals lay bare for Nigerians to see.

“Just recently, the government began a campaign of improvements in the standard of our tertiary health institutions, but Nigerians know that these teaching hospitals often lack basic amenities such as access to a steady supply of electricity.

“Undoubtedly, the Tinubu administration has failed woefully in the health sector because of the poor funding of the sector. The major diseases in the primary health sector remain malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS treatment. “

Furthermore, the former vice president noted that “if President Tinubu’s administration meant well in its claim to prioritise the health of Nigerians, his government should explain how it plans to spend this intervention fund in addressing these diseases in the primary health sector.

“On the contrary, what the government announced in its panic response to President Donald Trump’s announcement of the cancellation of American aids for the treatment of HIV/AIDS in Nigeria was a paltry N5 billion.

“If the Tinubu administration fails to provide a comprehensive framework to safeguard its purported huge investment in the health sector nor subject the appropriations to the scrutiny of the National Assembly, it may be safe to conclude that this is another episode of the administration committing a fraud in the name of public interest.”