NIGERIA’s overlapping budgets under President Bola Tinubu have left citizens worse off, with several life-changing programmes and critical projects either abandoned or stalled, as limited resources are stretched thin and fiscal priorities become increasingly blurred.
The implementation of the 2023 Appropriation Act, valued at about N21.8 trillion, alongside a N2.17 trillion supplementary budget, was extended repeatedly. It was first extended to March 31, 2024, then to June 30. The postponement was, however, carried out by the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari.
When President Tinubu came to office in May 2023, he extended the budget to December 31, 2024. Similarly, the 2024 ‘Budget of Renewed Hope,’ initially pegged at roughly N28.7 trillion, was implemented concurrently, together with the supplementary budget.
The overlaps persisted into the following year. The capital component of the 2024 budget was extended again, first to June 30, 2025, and later to December 31, 2025. As a result, Nigeria is now operating two budgets side by side: the extended 2024 capital budget and the 2025 budget, valued at N54.2 trillion.
The 2025 budget itself has expanded considerably. President Bola Tinubu initially proposed a N49.7 trillion spending plan in December 2024, but lawmakers approved a larger N54.99 trillion appropriation in February 2025, incorporating a deficit of N13.08 trillion. In November, the National Assembly further approved an additional N1.15 trillion in domestic borrowing, pushing total projected spending close to N60 trillion.
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In late 2025, the Tinubu administration directed ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs) to carry over 70 percent of their 2025 capital budget into the 2026 fiscal year.
According to the 2026 Abridged Budget Call Circular issued by the Federal Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning and circulated to all ministers, service chiefs, heads of agencies and top government officials in Abuja, “MDAs are to upload 70 per cent of their 2025 FGN Budget to continue in FY2026. All such rollover and uploads MUST be in line with the immediate needs of the country as well as government’s development priorities that aligns with the policy direction of the new administration which hinges on National Security, the Economy, Education, Health, Agriculture, Infrastructure, Power & Energy as well as social safety nets, women & youth empowerment.”
Impact on the people
The government’s persistent rollover of budgets is hurting Nigerians, hitting hard on critical sectors that should uplift the lives of the people.
In 2025, the Ministry of Health proposed a number of projects that were targeted at improving the lives of Nigerians. Some of these projects included: the procurement of 10,000 vials anti-snake venom; procurement of 1 billion units of pont of care sickle scan for childhood screening of sickle cell disease, as well as the distribution of 150,000 units of locally manufactured POC blood glucose monitoring and diagnostic kits.
Other projects that were not implemented due to the lack of funding included: Procurement of hepatitis test kits, as well as acquisition of cancer equipment in teaching hospitals in Benin, University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH), Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital (ABUTH), Federal Teaching Hospital Ido-Ekiti (FETH), Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Jos University Teaching Hospital (JUTH), and the Federal Teaching Hospital, Katsina.
In 2025, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security missed the opportunity to bolster food security, as it could not establish cottage and small scale agro processing industries in selected states for value addition as it proposed. Also, it could not fund rural farmers in the six geopolitical zones as proposed and was unable to empower women in agribusiness and agriculture. As a result, the nation had to import food to tame skyrocketing local prices.
Also, all the colleges of agriculture, research institutes and food security institutions had their budgets postponed due to the government’s inability to run its own budget.
“It is development postponed,” said an Abuja-based agricultural economist, Mr Kenneth Umeji. “It is a number of projects postponed. I remember the projects we wanted to run for a university of agriculture in 2024. The project is stalled up till now because money was never released to the institution in question.”
In 2025, the Standard Organization of Nigeria (SON) planned to procure a testing equipment. The equipment was expected to help test Nigerian products before they were shipped to Europe, US and other markets. It was expected to forestall rejections of Nigerian products at foreign markets and boost foreign exchange (FX) earnings.
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Currently, food items from Nigeria such as brown and white beans, melon seeds, palm oil, mushrooms, bitter leaf, ugu leaves, shelled groundnut, smoked catfish and crayfish are banned by the European Union due to sanitary and quality failures. The SON’s inability to purchase the equipment has continued to hurt exporters and prevented the nation from earning FX and creating jobs.
Also, the Enugu airport does not have a quality control tower as the money voted for it was never released last year. Also, elevators and escalators at the Wing D and E at Lagos airport were not replaced, as planned in the 2025 budget, putting the lives of passengers in danger.
“Hpw will you even make the lives of citizens better if you have no programmes for them?” asked an Abuja-based policy analyst, Mr Haruna Hassan.
“Think about laboratory equipment not purcahsed, cancer machines not procured, and educational programmes not executed because money was not released. People would have died and opportunities would have been missed.”
