The Federal Ministry of Finance has officially dismissed widespread media claims that $12.4 billion in Nigeria’s external accounts is missing or stolen, clarifying that the figure represents a standard statistical accounting discrepancy rather than evidence of diverted or unremitted crude oil revenues.
​The clarification was contained in an official statement issued in Abuja on Tuesday, October 20, 2026, by Maryann Duke-Okon, Senior Special Assistant on Communications and Press Secretary to the Minister of Finance, Taiwo Oyedele.
​The Ministry’s response followed intense public discourse and critical commentary triggered by the World Bank’s October 2026 Nigeria Development Update. The report captured a negative $12.4 billion balance-of-payments residual recorded under “net errors and omissions” for the first half of 2026.
​Disputing assertions by media outlets and opposition groups, including the African Democratic Congress, that characterized the figure as an unexplained financial shortfall, the Ministry clarified that “net errors and omissions” is a standard international accounting term used to balance national accounts when foreign transaction records do not fully reconcile.
​”It does not mean money has gone missing, been stolen, or been withheld. It is not an account or a sum held anywhere,” the Ministry emphasized in the statement.
​The Ministry noted that while the World Bank report acknowledged unrepatriated oil proceeds could account for part of the residual, it did not identify any specific amount, company, or crude oil cargo responsible for the discrepancy.
​To explain the source of the statistical variance, the Ministry outlined several structural and reporting factors affecting Nigeria’s balance of payments balance sheet.
​Chief among these is informal diaspora remittances, as an estimated $10 billion in annual remittances flows through unrecorded channels or remains outside formal domestic banking systems, making it difficult to capture in official balance of payments statistics.
​In addition, timing lags in crude oil sales play a major role, given that crude exports are recorded at the time of lifting while payments typically mature between 30 and 90 days later.
​Furthermore, joint-venture oil operators and partners lawfully retain portions of foreign earnings abroad to service debt and fund foreign commitments, while crude shipments linked to direct loan arrangements send proceeds straight to offshore lenders. Under-recorded cross-border trade and delayed corporate financial filings further complicate real-time data reconciliation.
​To further counter assertions of revenue leakages, the Ministry highlighted broader macroeconomic performance indicators from the same World Bank publication showing robust health across Nigeria’s external sector.
​Specifically, Nigeria generated a current account surplus of $12 billion during the first half of 2026. Over the same period, gross foreign reserves expanded by $8.3 billion, surging from $45.5 billion at the end of December 2025 to $53.8 billion by late August 2026.
​”An economy losing US12 billion in six months would not be adding over US8 billion to its reserves,” the Ministry concluded, urging financial analysts and media organizations to consult subject-matter experts before drawing conclusions on complex international accounting figures.
