Tinubu ordered the immediate release of N10bn for Ebola on 9 June. 135 days later, his campaign spokesman Alake says the money remains untouched

On 9 June the State House announced that President Bola Tinubu had set up a Presidential Task Force on Ebola and "ordered the immediate release of N10 billion as emergency intervention funding". On 22 October, two days after Nigeria's first Ebola case of this outbreak was found in Abuja, the APC Presidential Campaign Council said the same N10 billion "remains untouched". Both statements are posted on the State House website. Vero Record set them side by side.

The June release, signed by the President's Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, gives the money a stated job: "The fund will strengthen the operational preparedness of the National Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC) and support critical national public health emergency response activities." It lists measures for the task force, among them the "immediate activation of referral and isolation centres at Lagos and Abuja international airports".

The October statement is signed by Dele Alake, the Minister of Solid Minerals Development, as spokesperson of the APC Presidential Campaign Council. Replying to opposition questions about the fund, it says: "the N10 billion the President approved for the Ebola emergency in June remains untouched, while the NCDC, FAAN, and other surveillance agencies have spent other available resources."

From 9 June to 22 October is 135 days: 21 days left in June, 31 in July, 31 in August, 30 in September and 22 in October. On the campaign council's account, none of a fund the President ordered released "immediately" for NCDC preparedness was spent in any of them.

The two statements describe the money differently. The June release uses the words "immediate release". Alake's statement says only that the President "approved" the money. It does not say whether the N10 billion was ever released, into which account, or who holds it now.

Read together, the records leave two possibilities, and the presidency's own statements do not say which is true. Either the order of 9 June to release the money immediately was not carried out, or the money was released and then not used by the agency it was meant to prepare, through more than four months of preparedness work and into the first confirmed case.

The task force's own account of those months is one of activity. At an emergency meeting on 21 October its chairman, the Chief of Staff Femi Gbajabiamila, said it "has been working behind the scenes since it was inaugurated in June" and that about 44,000 flights had moved in and out of Nigeria since the issue arose. The Coordinating Minister of Health, Muhammad Ali Pate, said at the same meeting: "We have the resources, and we're mobilising those capabilities." The release does not say where those resources came from.

The record supports the government on one point. Alake's statement does not claim the work went unfunded: it says the NCDC, the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria and other agencies paid for surveillance from "other available resources", and an unspent emergency reserve is not in itself a failure. The statement also credits the surveillance network with finding the index case and tracing the patient's 44 contacts, which matches what Gbajabiamila said the day before.

What the record does not show is any published account of the fund. Vero Record found no statement on the State House website between 9 June and 22 October saying the N10 billion had been released, received, held back or spent, and none from the Ministry of Health or the NCDC in the reports we read.

The gap matters because both statements come from the President's own house. In June the public was told money had been ordered out "immediately" for an epidemic threat. In October, in the middle of an election campaign and after the first case, it was told the same money had never been touched. Neither statement explains what happened in between.

The documents do not establish that any money was misused, and nothing here suggests an offence by anyone. They establish that the presidency announced an immediate N10 billion release on 9 June, and that the President's campaign council, through a serving minister, said on 22 October that the sum was untouched.

We invite a response from Dele Alake on whether the N10 billion was released and where it is held; from Bayo Onanuga on whether the 9 June order was carried out and on what date; from Femi Gbajabiamila, as task force chairman, on any spending of the fund; and from the Ministry of Health and the NCDC on whether the agency received it. We will publish any reply in full.

What this rests on

Grade A, retrieved from statehouse.gov.ng and read in full (copies saved in src): (1) State House press release, 9 June 2026, signed Bayo Onanuga, "President Tinubu establishes Task Force on Ebola; approves N10b for emergency preparedness": "ordered the immediate release of N10 billion as emergency intervention funding"; "The fund will strengthen the operational preparedness of the National Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC)". (2) APC Presidential Campaign Council statement posted on statehouse.gov.ng, 22 October 2026, signed Dele Alake, "When disrespect becomes the staple of political statements": "the N10 billion the President approved for the Ebola emergency in June remains untouched, while the NCDC, FAAN, and other surveillance agencies have spent other available resources"; 44 contacts traced. (3) State House release, 21 October 2026, signed Bayo Onanuga, "Ebola: FG assures Nigerians of containment strategies": Gbajabiamila, task force "working behind the scenes since it was inaugurated in June", about 44,000 flights; Pate, "We have the resources"; index case found "yesterday" (20 October). (4) State House release, 18 June 2026: task force inaugurated. Arithmetic: 9 June to 22 October 2026 = 21 (10 to 30 June) + 31 + 31 + 30 + 22 = 135 days; 9 June to 20 October = 133 days. Grade B: Alake's office as Minister of Solid Minerals Development and his role as lead campaign spokesperson (campaign council list and press reports).

What this does not establish

Whether the N10 billion was ever released by the Budget Office or the Office of the Accountant-General, into which account, and who holds it; no release warrant, treasury payment record or NCDC account was obtained. Whether any part has been spent since 22 October. Whether the reserve was held back by design. How much the NCDC, FAAN and others spent from "other available resources" and from which budget lines. Nothing here establishes misuse of funds or any offence.