Tag: Budget

The Director-General of the Budget Office of the Federation, Dr. Tanimu Yakubu, has clarified the controversy surrounding the citing and distribution of federal government projects across the country, following claims that Lagos State alone had cornered a disproportionate share of President Bola Tinubu’s approvals.

Yakubu, in a statement titled “Northwest: The Lion’s Share of Tinubu’s Projects”, dismissed the narrative that Lagos received N3.9 trillion worth of projects, describing it as misleading and politically motivated.

According to him, a breakdown of the figures shows that only N1.2 trillion were Lagos-specific projects, such as airport fencing, Carter Bridge rehabilitation, and other localized upgrades.

The remaining N2.7 trillion, he explained, are national infrastructure projects, particularly highways and transport corridors that pass through Lagos but serve the entire federation.

“By that logic, the Kano–Maiduguri expressway could just as easily be called a Maiduguri-only project. Such sleight of hand ignores a central truth: these are not local trophies. They are the arteries of a national economy,” Yakubu said.

Contrary to the viral claims, Yakubu disclosed that the North West region is the single largest beneficiary of President Tinubu’s federal project approvals.

He provided the regional distribution of projects as follows: North West: N5.97 trillion (over 40% of all approvals); South South: N2.41 trillion; North Central: N1.13 trillion; South East: N407 billion; North East: N400 billion; South West (excluding Lagos): N604 billion and Lagos (exclusive projects): N1.2 trillion.

Yakubu noted that the figures leave no doubt that the North West, and not Lagos, holds the lion’s share of projects under the Tinubu administration.

The Budget Office DG urged Nigerians to stop viewing infrastructure as sectional “trophies” or “rewards” for regions, insisting that roads, railways, and power plants are national assets designed to connect Nigeria’s economy and people.

“The farmer in Katsina needs a market in Lagos. The trader in Aba depends on goods flowing through Kano. The student in Sokoto requires the national grid as much as her counterpart in Port Harcourt. Federal projects must be understood as national investments designed to connect Nigeria to itself, and ultimately to the world,” he explained.

Yakubu noted that the president has not forgotten the pivotal role of the North West in his election and has responded with deliberate investments in the region.

He pointed to the revival of the long-abandoned Kaduna Power Plant (255MW), the ongoing Kaduna–Kano expressway, the Kano–Maiduguri highway, the Sokoto–Illela corridor, and new investments in education and security infrastructure as evidence of the administration’s commitment to the region.

“These are not footnotes,” Yakubu said. “They are the backbone of a deliberate Northwest-first investment strategy—kilometre by kilometre, megawatt by megawatt.”

Looking ahead, he disclosed plans for the ambitious Tinubu National Beltway Project, an L-shaped corridor that will link Calabar in the South South to Maiduguri in the North East, and then across to Sokoto in the North West.

The project, when completed, will redraw Nigeria’s infrastructural map, connecting four regions through modern highways, economic corridors, and logistics hubs. It is expected to reduce logistics costs, improve connectivity, boost market access, and stimulate wealth creation across the country.

Yakubu warned against what he called attempts to use “viral infographics” to create regional division. He said such tactics amount to political blackmail and ignore the national vision behind the projects.

“Lagos remains Nigeria’s commercial hub, rightly upgraded. The Northwest is Nigeria’s electoral fortress, richly rewarded. Every region receives its due, because Tinubu budgets for one economy, one country, one people,” he said.

The DG concluded that history will judge the Tinubu administration not by controversial graphics but by tangible results such as power plants restored, new schools and hospitals constructed, and farmers and traders gaining wider access to markets.

“President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has not marginalized the North. He has trusted it, invested in it, and rewarded it. That is the record. That is the fact. That is the truth. And no infographic, however deceptive, can bury it,” Yakubu insisted.

Director General, Budget Office of the Federation, Tanimu Yakubu, on Thursday provided clarity on the multi-budget operations.

The 2024 Appropriation Act, 2024 supplementary budget, and 2025 Appropriation Act are running simultaneously.

The National Assembly this week extended the capital vote component of the 2024 budget till December 31.

According to Yakubu, the development is not a sign of fiscal confusion but a deliberate response to real-world economic and administrative realities.

Addressing public concerns over the overlapping fiscal instruments, Yakubu said that while the simultaneous operation of multiple budgets may appear unconventional, it is legally grounded and administratively necessary.

“It reflects the real-world overlap between budget law, execution delays, and system-wide reform efforts,” Yakubu said.

He said the concurrent implementation of budgets is not outside the bounds of national laws and conforms to global best practices.

He outlined that the Finance Act, Appropriation Act clauses, and Central Bank of Nigeria’s circulars provide the legal basis for this coexistence by allowing rollover of capital releases across fiscal years; cash-flow bridging to support early implementation of new budgets; and parallel accounting for complex or externally-financed infrastructure and social programmes.

He said: “This is not fiscal dysfunction—it is the transitional cost of trying to modernise a complex, high-volume national budget system.”

He described the current situation as “institutional flexibility in managing fiscal transitions”, noting that the critical issue should not be the number of budgets being operated but the coordination and transparency in their execution.

“What’s in operation now is a reforming system, not a chaotic one.

“The 2025 budget is being implemented in earnest, while residuals from the 2024 and Supplementary Budgets are lawfully closed out and disbursed.

“This is part of building a more agile and accountable public finance framework.

“Nigeria’s overlapping budget operations are legal under current fiscal statutes, technically necessary due to multi-year projects and delayed implementation, and comparable to practices in other countries navigating budget reform and absorptive constraints,” Yakubu said.

He explained that the 2024 Appropriation Act, which was signed by the President in January 2024, was valid until December 31, 2024, but it remains the primary legal framework for federal spending in 2024 and thus continued to be active, especially for capital projects, statutory obligations, and contracts tied to 2024 project codes.

To bridge gaps that arose after the approval of the main budget, the Federal Government introduced a Supplementary Appropriation Act mid-year.

Yakubu explained that the supplementary budget was necessary to address escalating security and humanitarian demands, revenue windfalls or reallocations, and emerging economic shocks and sectoral urgencies not accounted for in the main budget.

He pointed out that such amendments are standard practice globally, pointing out that a supplementary budget amends or extends the main budget, running concurrently, not as a duplicate, but as a legal fiscal continuation.

Regarding the 2025 Appropriation Act, Yakubu noted that while it was signed before the end of 2024 to maintain the January to December budget cycle, its execution began alongside ongoing disbursements from the 2024 and supplementary budgets.

He said: “The transition hasn’t been seamless. Execution of the 2025 budget coexists with unspent but already committed capital allocations from 2024, procurement delays and disbursement lags; and multi-year or donor-funded projects that legally span two or more fiscal years.

“This situation is not unique to Nigeria. In India, Indonesia, and Kenya, similar overlaps occur as governments reconcile planning cycles with execution realities.”

Our positions, by experts
Economic experts said there were underlying issues that could have caused the overlapping of budgets but called for reforms to align budget to a fiscal circle and feasible revenue profile.

Chief Executive Officer, Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise (CPPE), Dr. Muda Yusuf, said capital budget has a long history of underperformance, which needs to be reversed.

According to him, there were number of factors that could be responsible for budget extension including collapse of underlying revenue assumption and overambitious budgeting.

“First is possible collapse of the underlying revenue assumptions in successive budgets. It is worthy of note that revenue performance in 2024 was far below target. This could be as a result of the forward sales of crude oil as well as failure to achieve the oil production target which was about two million barrels per day.

“There is also the possibility that the budget itself was ambitious. It is also troubling that debt service obligations are increasingly taking a huge toll on the fiscal space. The rolling over of capital budget implementation is the outcome of this reality.

“It’s perhaps time to reform the budget process to make our budgets more realistic. Capital projects should be strictly aligned with the realistic capacity to fund them.

“It is hoped that the tax reforms would accelerate the fiscal consolidation aspirations of government,” Yusuf said.

More Nigerians have continued to express outrage over the reported insertion of N6.93 trillion worth of projects into the 2025 national budget by members of the National Assembly without adequate justification, while the President Bola Tinubu-led administration keeps mum.

About a week ago, BudgIT, a civic tech organization promoting transparency and accountability in public finance, revealed it uncovered 11,122 projects valued at N6.93 trillion that the National Assembly inserted into the 2025 Federal Government Budget.

The latest reactions and criticisms came during a radio programme, PUBLIC CONSCIENCE, produced by the Progressive Impact Organization for Community Development, PRIMORG, on Wednesday in Abuja.

Project Officer at BudgIT Nigeria, Caroline Anintah, highlighting the unusual inclusion in the 2025 budget, maintained that the insertions were highly valued, questionable, and allocated to government Ministries Departments and Agencies, MDAs, that cannot implement the projects.

BudgIT, however, recommended ways to address dubious budget insertions, urging the National Assembly to focus on oversight.

“We (BudgIT) recommend that the president must enforce stronger alignment between the budget and national plans; then judicial clarity – the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) should seek the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the legislature’s powers, and then agencies like the EFCC and the ICPC should investigate and prosecute the misuse of budget, while CSOs and citizens should be part of the budget review and implementation as this will help track and limit frivolous insertions.”

Anintah noted that the level of insertions in the current budget shows that federal legislators are overstepping their boundaries and can destroy the programmes of the executives. Adding that the worry is on the competence of the MDAs where the inserted projects are allocated.

She disclosed that President Bola Tinubu and his cabinet members had yet to comment on lawmakers’ insertion of 11,000 projects worth N6.9 trillion into the national budget. Likewise, the leadership of the National Assembly has not uttered a word following BudgIT’s expose.

“Our report is on insertions, which are introducing new project line items to the budget. What makes this year special is that we’ve never seen such a high value of insertions.

“The Ministry of Agriculture had over 4,300 inserted projects, which is worth more than N1.72tn, Science and Technology had insertions worth N994bn and Ministry of Budget and Economic planning had N1.1trn worth of insertions, and these ministries were likely used as dumping grounds for projects.

“Many of them don’t have the technical capacity for these projects, and there’s no clear evidence that the ministries were actively consulted before these projects were added to their budget, and this creates implementation challenges as the agencies are stuck with projects they did not plan for or are not equipped to deliver.”

On the response of the National Assembly or Tinubu-led government following the report of suspicious insertions in the 2025 budget, Anintah stated, “As of now, we’ve not received any direct or public reaction from the NASS or the executive arm, but we hope that the report serves as a wake-up call for them to follow due process of budgeting.”

For his part, Dr. Umar Yakubu, the Executive Director of the Center for Fiscal Transparency and Public Integrity (CEFTPI), stated that dubious budget insertions were destroying national development.

Yakubu decried that national budgets have become a cesspool of corruption since the return to democracy, with the interests of political elites placed above the citizens. Hence, Nigerians do not feel the impact of implemented budgets.

He faulted the president and his cabinet members for keeping mum on the alleged insertion of projects worth nearly N7 trillion, urging the Tinubu administration to ensure there’s a consequence for anyone perpetrating corruption with national budgets as it is the main step in curbing anomalies, usually seen in budget process and implementation.

“That is why you see for decades now, especially from 1999, a lot of budgets have little impact on poverty, security, health care, water system, education, and on all sectors of the economy. Now, that means the budget process already has a fundamental problem in the first place because it is not citizen-led.

“And let’s not forget the same goes at the state level. Though there might not be insertions by the state assembly members but by the governors who ensure they insert all these things that are not citizen-led because of the money they will extract, so it’s just basically a pool of corruption.

“Insertion distorts national plans and agenda. If you don’t assess it that way, you won’t see the danger of what these legislators are doing. It’s not just about the money. It’s about distorting the process as laid out by the executive.”

On the President’s silence on the insertion, Yakubu says, “President Tinubu has to react because he has said he wants to bring development to Nigeria. This report threatens to impede what he wants to do for the country. So, it is in the country’s interest to ensure budget implementation.

“Another thing we need to do is assess the budget implementation reports, but we haven’t even seen them.

“The difference between civilization and the jungle is law. As long as we are not implementing our laws, we are no different from the jungle. We need to continue advocating for the government to implement very clear laws. Wrongdoing should follow sanctions as provided by the law. If not, our national development is threatened,” he warned.

Yakubu lamented that citizens are growing weary but would become more involved in engaging the government if corrupt elements were brought to book.

Furthermore, he regretted the effect of political interference on the mandate of anti-graft agencies in Nigeria, which continues to infringe on their ability to punish budget corruption.

An Abuja resident who identified himself as Yemzy called into the radio programme and said, “I don’t feel what the lawmakers did was insertion; I feel it was budget padding because of the inflation in the country. Padding comes from price regulation, not just wickedness or bad acts.”

Public Conscience is a syndicated weekly anti-corruption radio program that draws the government and citizens’ attention to corruption and integrity issues in Nigeria.

The program runs in partnership with the MacArthur Foundation.