The details of the 2025 federal budget have once again exposed the disconcerting dysfunction that has defined governance in Nigeria. BudgIT, a civic-tech organisation advocating for budget transparency, has revealed that the National Assembly inserted over 11,000 projects valued at N6.93 trillion into the budget. This is unacceptable.
It represents a damning indictment of a budgetary system riddled with corruption, waste, and a wanton disregard for national priorities. It constitutes a key plank on which the government’s credibility has been steadily eroded.
Nigeria’s budgeting process has long been plagued by an odious phenomenon known as “budget padding”. This is the insertion of projects with little justification, often designed to serve lawmakers’ political or personal interests rather than the public good.
In the budget, which stands at a record N54.99 trillion, nearly 12.5 per cent or N6.93 trillion was allocated to such questionable insertions.
BudgIT’s analysis highlighted 238 projects exceeding N5 billion each, with no clear rationale, totalling N2.29 trillion. Another 984 projects worth N1.71 trillion were inserted, many inappropriately categorised and distributed.
The evidence suggests that public funds are being siphoned into pet projects with negligible impact on national development.
Ordinarily, constituency projects are essential tools through which governments deliver critical infrastructure, services, and development at the grassroots.
In Nigeria, however, the misappropriation and misallocation of public funds under this guise is appalling in its wastefulness.
Huge sums have been directed to duplicative, poorly executed, and non-existent streetlight installations, town hall buildings, religious centres, borehole projects, and ICT initiatives. Quite alarming is the allocation of N6.74 billion for the “empowerment of traditional rulers.”
Such an equivocal outlay highlights the culture of patronage embedded in Nigeria’s fiscal expenditures.
Even more discomfiting is the frequent misallocation of projects to ministries, departments, and agencies far removed from their statutory responsibilities.
BudgIT reported instances where agricultural research agencies were tasked with executing streetlight projects, scholarships, and classroom renovations.
The Ministry of Agriculture alone saw its capital allocation balloon from N242.5 billion to N1.95 trillion due to these insertions, with 39 per cent of all padded projects lumped into its budget.
How can it be explained that the National Centre for Agricultural Mechanisation, Ilorin, was allocated N400 million for scholarships and educational grants in Bayelsa West Senatorial District, and another N350 million for a community health insurance scheme in the same district?
In the preceding 2024 budget, the Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria in Ibadan got N250 million for solar street lights in Lagos! It also got N100 million for motorcycles in Osun, N100 million for health centre construction in Ondo, and N200 million for classroom renovations in Rivers.
This indiscriminate reallocation underscores the absence of planning and coordination and renders effective execution almost impossible. Indeed, these types of insertions make a mockery of the budgeting process.
This is entrenched corruption. Former President Muhammadu Buhari lamented that Nigeria wasted N1 trillion on phantom constituency projects in the 10 years to 2019.
A new report on a nationwide tracking exercise of the ICPC’s Constituency and Executive Projects Tracking Group revealed that projects were sited on private properties of the sponsors or their cronies.
Many are in breach of the Procurement Act 2007, using personal companies to execute government projects, passing off or round-tripping of projects, and converting project vehicles to personal property – nobody bothers to do a needs assessment before projects are sited.
The CEPTG reported a lack of synergy between outgoing and incoming legislators, such that projects initiated by the former are abandoned by the latter. It revealed widespread collusion between sponsors’ aides and contractors to defraud Nigeria through contract over-invoicing.
These issues are not new. Since Nigeria’s return to democracy in 1999, budget padding has been a recurrent scandal. Former President Obasanjo once rejected the 2000 Appropriation Bill over N2 billion in inflated provisions.
Overwhelming evidence suggests that constituency projects are conduits of corruption devised by legislators for personal aggrandisement.
As Ndubisi Nwokoma, an emeritus professor, aptly stated, “Those in public office want to maximise their welfare while they can.”
The Nigerian Constitution states, unambiguously, that the legislature’s core functions are lawmaking, representation, and oversight, not project implementation.
Legislators have steadily encroached on executive responsibilities, going so far as to supervise projects they unilaterally inserted into the budget.
This undermines the rule of law and democratic accountability. In chasing political capital by “bringing projects home”, lawmakers have abandoned their duty of oversight and transformed themselves into de facto project managers and contractors.
Ordinary Nigerians bear the consequences. While political elites manipulate budgets to fund obscene lifestyles, impoverished citizens are denied access to critical services, including healthcare, education, and infrastructure.
The result is visible in the crumbling public schools, dilapidated hospitals, power outages, and pothole-riddled roads that millions endure daily.
It is incongruous that the Bola Tinubu administration will allow this murky culture of corruption and impunity to thrive despite the prevalent fiscal strain on public finances.
The 11,000 projects identified in the BudgIT report must be immediately reviewed for relevance, location, and cost verification.
The Executive, in seeking to emplace a pliant legislature, must not enable a despicable and dubious practice that haemorrhages Nigeria’s battered treasury. The country cannot afford it.
Nigeria’s public debt is projected to reach N187.79 trillion, and the external debt service bill is expected to increase to $5.2 billion by the end of 2025, per Fitch.
The 2025 budget reflects a fiscal deficit of N13.08 trillion, constituting approximately 38 per cent of the Federal Government’s revenues, 3.87 per cent of the estimated GDP, and 23 per cent of the total expenditure, alongside a projected debt servicing obligation of N14.32 trillion.
Legislators and the executive must exercise the utmost responsibility and restraint in managing borrowed resources.
Amid the outcry, the parliament has, predictably, dismissed the allegations as politically motivated and baseless, accusing critics of spreading “irreverent propaganda.” This is not true.
This attempt at gaslighting the public fails the test of facts. The discrepancies between official budget lines and the figures inserted by lawmakers point to a need for fundamental reform of budgetary processes.
More functional democracies have developed mechanisms to ensure accountability in constituency projects.
In the United States, “earmarks” are legislator-inserted projects funded through the federal budget. Such projects are subject to strict public disclosure, itemised in spending bills, and must be linked to specific local needs.
Every earmark must be associated with a named sponsor and a publicly disclosed justification. Additionally, they are reviewed through structured committee processes, ensuring a degree of oversight absent in Nigeria’s model.
Several urgent steps must be taken for Nigeria to restore credibility to its budgeting process. The judiciary must be approached to clarify the limits of legislative powers in budget preparation, while anti-corruption laws must be enforced without exception.
Project insertions should undergo independent vetting by anti-corruption agencies such as the ICPC, which must track implementation in real time and assess outcomes.
Indeed, the ICPC and EFCC must reclassify arbitrary insertions as acts of corruption that must be met with diligent prosecution.
The executive and legislature must collaborate, not compete, in aligning the budget with national priorities while accommodating legitimate constituency needs.
Equally important is civic education. Lawmakers must make constituents understand that their primary role is legislative, not executive. This will help reduce undue pressure on lawmakers to “perform.”
Ultimately, Tinubu must rise to this challenge.
The country’s leaders must demonstrate accountability and commitment to the public good rather than rapaciously seeking unjust enrichment.
