Nigeria Fails US Fiscal Transparency Test, Washington Says

The United States government has raised concerns over Nigeria’s fiscal transparency, saying the country still falls short of minimum standards for publicly disclosing government revenues, expenditures, auditing and procurement information.

The assessment is contained in the 2026 Fiscal Transparency Report released by the US Department of State. The report examined the fiscal practices of 139 governments and one entity, with 73 meeting the minimum transparency requirements while 67 did not.

According to the US assessment, Nigeria made some progress in making fiscal information available but still failed to provide the public with a sufficiently complete and reliable picture of government finances.

The State Department said Nigeria should make its executive budget proposal more widely and easily accessible and provide a substantially complete account of government revenues and expenditures in its budget documents.

It also called for clearer disclosure of spending supporting executive offices and urged the government to ensure that actual revenues and expenditures reasonably correspond with projections contained in the enacted budget.

The report further criticised Nigeria’s public procurement transparency, saying information on government contracts was not sufficiently accessible to the public.

Washington recommended that Nigeria publish accessible information on public procurement contracts as part of efforts to strengthen accountability and public oversight.

The United States also raised concerns about the country’s supreme audit institution, saying it did not meet international standards for independence and did not publish substantive audit reports, despite having access to the government’s executed budget.

The State Department recommended measures to strengthen the independence and reporting capacity of the institution responsible for auditing federal government accounts.

The report also acknowledged areas where Nigeria’s fiscal framework performed better.

The US assessment credited Nigeria’s sovereign wealth fund with having a sound legal framework, including disclosure of its funding sources and general approach to withdrawals.

It also found that Nigeria had laws specifying criteria and procedures for awarding natural-resource extraction contracts and licences and that the government generally followed those regulations in practice.

Importantly, the 2026 report assesses fiscal practices between January and December 2025. Therefore, measures introduced by the Nigerian government after the end of 2025 were outside the scope of the assessment.

The findings come amid an ongoing debate over fiscal accountability in Nigeria.

The International Monetary Fund’s 2026 Article IV report similarly identified a 2.7 per cent of GDP statistical discrepancy in Nigeria’s 2025 fiscal accounts, saying it could reflect spending not captured by the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation. The IMF also noted that estimated savings from the removal of the fuel subsidy did not appear to have accrued to the budget in 2025.

The Nigerian government has rejected suggestions that it operates a hidden or “shadow” budget, maintaining that public funds are spent within the constitutional and statutory framework.

The latest US report therefore adds international pressure on Abuja to improve the openness, reliability and accessibility of information about how government raises and spends public funds.