Nigeria’s public finances are facing mounting pressure as fiscal indiscipline and governance gaps continue to undermine the nation’s budgetary process. Experts say that successive budgets have become overly optimistic exercises, disconnected from actual revenue realities and poor implementation records. With weak parliamentary oversight and politically driven amendments, citizens are left doubting the effectiveness of government spending.
At the center of the crisis is President Bola Tinubu’s recent push for the repeal of two non-performing budgets while simultaneously presenting the 2026 budget and the 2026–2028 Medium Term Expenditure Framework/Fiscal Strategy Paper (MTEF/FSP). While the MTEF/FSP has been approved with minimal scrutiny, the 2026 appropriation bill is expected to follow a similar path, raising concerns about transparency and accountability in budget planning.
Analysts argue that Nigeria’s budgeting system has increasingly become speculative, with assumptions detached from realistic projections. For instance, the 2024 and 2025 budgets underperformed in capital expenditure, leaving multi-trillion-naira gaps in infrastructure projects. Despite these failures, the government continues to adopt optimistic revenue benchmarks, particularly in oil production, which remain largely unattainable based on historical trends.
The 2026 budget draft anticipates a total spending envelope of N58.1 trillion, including N15.52 trillion for debt servicing—an amount that exceeds combined allocations for critical sectors like health, education, and infrastructure. Experts warn that such an approach risks worsening Nigeria’s fiscal deficit and constraining resources for social investment, as well as increasing dependency on borrowing to fill funding gaps.
With the government repeating past mistakes and presenting budgets as political rituals rather than instruments of national planning, Nigerians face continued uncertainty about how public resources are managed. As calls grow for stricter fiscal discipline and more realistic budgeting practices, the success of the 2026 budget may hinge on whether policymakers can balance political expediency with genuine economic stewardship.
source: The Guardian