President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration is poised to present the 2026 Appropriation Bill to the National Assembly on Friday, December 19, without releasing a performance report for the 2025 budget, a development that has sparked fresh concerns over transparency and fiscal accountability.
BudgIT, a prominent civic technology organisation focused on public finance, disclosed on Thursday via its verified X handle @BudgITng, that “the 2026 budget will be presented tomorrow,” warning that Nigerians are being asked to accept a new budget without clarity on how the current one has been implemented.
“The 2026 budget is almost here, yet we don’t know how the 2025 budget performed. No report. No accountability,” BudgIT stated on X.
What BudgIT is saying:
The civic-tech organisation is saying that budget implementation reports are a key accountability tool that ought to precede new budget proposals.
This offers insight into how approved revenues and expenditures for the outgoing year translate into real economic outcomes.
For the non-governmental body, the absence of such a report weakens legislative oversight and public trust, especially at a time of heightened fiscal pressure.
Recently, BudgIT also raised a red flag after government told MDAs to roll over yet-to-be-implemented capital projects, warning that budgets are not designed to be rolled over wholesale.
Three budgets running in one fiscal year
The concern is compounded by what analysts describe as Nigeria’s highly irregular practice of effectively running multiple budgets at the same time.
In 2023 and 2024, the Federal Government operated main budgets alongside supplementary appropriations, while carrying over unimplemented components.
Nigeria is now executing the 2025 budget, parts of the 2024 supplementary budget, and uncompleted items from the 2024 main budget—amounting to three overlapping budgets in a single fiscal year, suggesting serious execution and financing problems within government.
What you should know
Last week, the federal government directed Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to carry over 70% of their approved 2025 capital allocations to 2026. In a circular issued by the Budget Ministry and circulated to senior government officials, MDAs were instructed that their 2026 budget proposals must largely be composed of funds already allocated in 2025. New capital projects are not permitted under this directive.
Under the new framework:
- Only 30% of 2025 capital allocations will be progressively disbursed this year; the remaining 70% forms the core of the 2026 capital budget.
- Overhead (recurrent) budgets must remain within 2025 ceilings, despite inflationary pressures.
The government argued that this will avoid duplication, reduce wasteful spending, and ensure value-for-money given constrained revenues.
This has raised pointed questions, especially following fuel subsidy removal, record tax collections, exchange-rate reforms and aggressive domestic and external borrowing.
Nigeria’s National Assembly approved a revised budget of N54.9 trillion for this fiscal year, 2025. Of this total budget proposal, N14.85 trillion represents the planned spending on capital projects and investments such as infrastructure, power, transportation, and other development initiatives. Analysts ask why capital projects are being postponed if revenues are supposedly at historic highs.
Backstory
- Records show Nigeria’s sharp revenue growth, from about N3 trillion in 2020 to roughly N20.98 trillion in 2024, according to BudgIT’s publication of “How FG’s Finances Performed in 2024.”
- The sharp increase was driven by higher VAT, customs receipts and subsidy savings. Yet expenditure has ballooned even faster—from about N10 trillion in 2020 to N34 trillion in 2024.
- According to analysts, had spending been restrained closer to 2021 levels, Nigeria would be running little or no deficit today.
- Fiscal analysts say that Nigeria’s problem is not revenue; instead, it is reckless expenditure, a general concensus that adds weight to BudgIT’s call for greater budget transparency.
