• Super Admin
• 07 Mar, 2026

A budget is a statement of expected income and expenditure of the government within a period of time, usually, one year. The Nigeria Constitution imbued the President with the power to initiate and prepare the budget, and imbued the legislature with the power to approve the budget presented to it by the President. Section 81(1)(2) of the 1999 Constitution provides that the President shall cause to be prepared and laid before each House of the National Assembly at any time in each financial year estimates of the revenues and expenditure of the federation for the next following financial year. The heads of expenditure contained in the estimates shall be included in a bill, to be known as an Appropriation Bill, providing for the issue from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the sums necessary to meet that expenditure and the appropriation of those sums for the purposes specified therein. The Constitution went further to define financial year to mean any period of 12 months beginning on the first day of January in any year or such other date as the National Assembly may prescribe.(See section 318 of the 1999 Constitution). It is therefore illegal for any President to spend any money not appropriated by the National Assembly. It is also unconstitutional for any President to extend any budget beyond 12 months of its promulgation, or for the legislature to retroactively approve any expenditure by the President. Tinubu came into power on May 29, 2023. His first yearly budget was the 2024 budget. Presently, the 2026 budget is still being debated on the floor of the National Assembly to be passed into law. Till date, the 2024 budget has not been fully implemented. This is the most egregious desecration of the constitutional provisions on budgets and budgeting. The full budget cycle of the 2024 budget was to begin from January 1st, 2024, and end by December 31st, 2024. So was the 2025 budget. It is the duty of the National Assembly to choose any other duration of one year to start and end the yearly budget. For instance, it can choose from March 1st to February 28 of any year, but the duration must not exceed one year. Today, Tinubu is operating three budgets at the same time. He promised to correct these errors in Budget 2026, which till March is not ready. The National Assembly confirmed this situation when they invited the Ministers of Finance during the budget defence of ministers last week before the legislature to query them on why the 2024 budget is yet to be fully implemented, and why the 2025 budget has only been funded 34 per cent - most of which is recurrent expenditure, while the capital expenditure for the 2025 budget was almost zero. The national legislature revealed that N1.15 trillion had been raised and specifically approved by the National Assembly to fund 30 per cent of the 2025 capital budget, but zero performance has been recorded. This is really a shame on Nigeria and this has made us a laughing stock in the international community. It has brought indescribable confusion in the minds of the legislature and Nigerians about what has been implemented or not in the budgets. In the words of the members of the National Assembly, "When capital projects funding are at zero, development stops. When development stops, Nigerians suffer." Nigeria has been suffering retardation and stunted growth since the inception of Tinubu's regime due to lack of budget implementation, while the people have been suffering from starvation and diseases immensely. The offensive odours coming out from the 2026 budget defence by the incompetent and extremely corrupt Tinubu's ministers speak volumes. It is pertinent to note that there is one item on the numerous unimplemented budgets that has been meticulously implemented. This item is the amount of borrowing granted to Tinubu in order to ensure the full implementation of the budget. It is always recorded that there is an oversubscription for the debt instruments issued by Tinubu at all times. This is why Tinubu's government has borrowed more in two years than all the governments put together from 1999. Tinubu met a debt burden of about N77 trillion but our total debt now is more than N150 trillion. Tinubu had also boasted in 2025 that he has realised all the total projected revenue for the year in August, touting strong revenue performance by agencies like Federal Inland Revenue Services (FIRS), Customs, and others. The National Assembly detailed the multiple loans that were secured by Tinubu in 2025, including: $1.2 billion for digital infrastructure, $500 million for economic stimulus, $500 million for MSMEs (approved December 2025), $500 million from the African Development Bank (November 2025) for economic governance and energy transition, and a recent executive request for $21 million, 15 billion Yen, and 4 billion Euros. The cardinal question therefore is: why would a government, with this avalanche of borrowed money, and which has acquired all the revenue it projected for the year, not fulfil the expenditure it projected. The simple answer is corruption. Numerous state and non-state actors are diverting the funds for their personal unbudgeted expenditure. With many Tinubu's immediate unelected family members sitting on top of too many re-election political movements, it is sensible to submit, subject to any meaningful rebuttal, that the country's money is channelled towards Tinubu's re-election. It is on record that Donald Trump, the President of United States of America, called Nigeria, "the now disgraced country." After the disbursement of an unbudgeted $9m (equivalent of about N12.6b) to Americans as money for purported lobbying, Donald Trump invited Remi Tinubu and proclaimed her an honourable woman, who is a pastor. The Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Mohammed Pate, while defending his ministry's 2026 budget, alarmed a whole nation, when he revealed that only ₦36 million was received out of the ₦218 billion appropriated for the year. This is virtually zero budget allocation to the ministry for capital projects. He attributed the poor implementation of the ministry's 2025 capital budget to inadequate cash releases. He said the Constitution and the National Health Act mandate the government to guarantee the right to health for all Nigerians, with the 2016 National Health Policy providing the implementation framework. This is a subtle admission by the Minister that Tinubu's government has failed woefully in securing the health of the nation. Is anyone surprised that Lassa fever that has always been effectively contained by previous governments, has killed more than 75 people within six weeks, in about 14 states of Nigeria which include Ondo, Bauchi, Taraba, Edo, Plateau, Gombe, Nasarawa, Kano, Ebonyi, the Federal Capital Territory, Kogi, Kebbi, Kaduna and Benue, and in about 58 local government areas? Snakes have killed people in the Federal Capital Territory with no anti-snake venoms found in the hospitals to ameliorate the situation. Health workers are continually on strike or threatening to go on strike. This Lassa fever disease is heightened by a dirty environment that provides homes for rats, which are the major spreader of the disease, to inhabit and pollute human infrastructure, which help to spread the Lassa fever. The FCT is now reputed to be a dirty territory, which provides grounds for diseases to fester with no functioning health sector to confront the diseases. Indeed inefficient budget implementation leads to stunted development of the country. It was clear that both Minister of Finance, Wale Edun, and Minister of State for Finance, Doris Uzoka-Anite, had no defence to this momentous failure of lack of budget implementation. Of course they understand that it is the incompetence and corruption of the government they serve that is responsible for it, but for fear of backlash from the merciless government of Tinubu, they stammered their way all through the defence of budget to the embarrassment of the lawmakers. The last time Wale Edun educated his boss by telling the world that only 25 per cent of the total projected revenue was realised in 2025 instead of the full revenue projected for the year, as claimed by Tinubu, his ministry was torn into two and he was removed from anything concerning revenue earning or disbursement. The unfortunate Doris Uzoka-Anite was brought in from being the substantive Minister of Trade and Investment to man the revenue collection and disbursement of the Tinubu administration as an Assistant Minister. Tinubu, realising his mistake of appointing a person from the South East, that he detests so much, to be in the Finance Ministry, redeployed Doris again from the Finance Ministry to the Ministry of Budget and Planning as Assistant Minister, and of course replaced her with a person from the South West, to complete the total decimation of the other five geo-political zones in favour of his own South-West Geo-Political Zone in the area of the economy. Doris had been changed for three times within three years in three different ministries because she is from the South East. This is a subtle message to her that she is not wanted in this administration and if she is wise, she would do the needful, before Tinubu ultimately boots her out. Source: https://thesun.ng/budget-implementation-abuse-and-stunted-development/