In a significant move that underscores both the ambition and the fiscal complexities of Nigeria’s current economic trajectory, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu presented the proposed 2026 budget to a joint session of the National Assembly on Friday, December 19, 2025. Dubbed the budget of “Sustainable Stabilisation,” the ₦54.46 trillion proposal arrives at a critical juncture, with the administration battling to maintain fiscal discipline while navigating a labyrinth of overlapping budget cycles. The presentation, occurring less than two weeks before the end of the fiscal year, marks a definitive departure from the January-to-December budget cycle that had been painstakingly restored by the previous administration, signalling a return to a more fluid, albeit chaotic, fiscal calendar.
The headline figure of ₦54.46 trillion represents a massive financial undertaking, predicated on a series of optimistic economic assumptions. The proposal is anchored on a crude oil benchmark price of $60 per barrel and a daily production target of 1.84 million barrels per day (mbpd). Furthermore, the budget assumes an exchange rate of ₦1,512 to the United States dollar, with an inflation projection of 16.5 per cent and a GDP growth target of 4.68 per cent. These parameters, particularly the oil production targets, will face intense scrutiny given the nation’s historical struggles with meeting OPEC quotas due to persistent theft and vandalism in the Niger Delta.
A granular look at the expenditure profile reveals a government heavily leaning on leverage to fund its operations. Of the total ₦54.46 trillion, the administration projects a revenue intake of ₦34.33 trillion, leaving a gaping deficit that necessitates a new borrowing plan of ₦17.88 trillion, sourced from both domestic and foreign markets. Perhaps most concerning for fiscal watchers is the allocation for debt servicing, which stands at a staggering ₦15.52 trillion. This figure highlights the immense pressure debt obligations continue to place on the nation’s finances, consuming a substantial portion of generated revenue and limiting the fiscal space available for developmental projects.
The expenditure breakdown further delineates the administration’s priorities, with Capital Expenditure pegged at ₦20.131 trillion, aimed at driving infrastructure development. Meanwhile, Recurrent (non-debt) expenditure is estimated at ₦15.265 trillion, Statutory Transfers at ₦3.152 trillion, and ₦1.376 trillion set aside for pensions and gratuities. While the capital allocation appears robust on paper, the challenge remains the actual release and utilisation of these funds, a recurring bottleneck in Nigeria’s budget implementation history.
However, the 2026 proposal is only half of the unfolding fiscal story. In a simultaneous legislative manoeuvre that reveals the extent of the current budgetary disarray, President Tinubu has also forwarded two additional bills to the House of Representatives seeking to repeal and re-enact the Appropriation Acts for both 2024 and 2025. This request, read by Speaker Abbas Tajudeen during plenary, aims to “clean up” the books by addressing unrecognised items and aligning spending with current fiscal realities. It essentially admits that the previous budgets were either under-calculated or overtaken by inflationary pressures and devaluation.
The specifics of these revision bills are telling. The President is seeking to repeal the 2024 Appropriation Act of ₦35.06 trillion and re-enact it with an increased total of ₦43.56 trillion, extending its life to December 31, 2025. Conversely, he seeks to repeal the 2025 Appropriation Act of ₦54.99 trillion and re-enact it with a reduced expenditure of ₦48.32 trillion, while extending its implementation period to March 31, 2026. This complex juggling act means that, effectively, Nigeria is operating under three concurrent budget frameworks: a retroactive expansion of the 2024 budget, a modification and extension of the 2025 budget, and the introduction of the 2026 estimates. The President argued that these adjustments reflect a “revised capital implementation target of 30 per cent” and are necessary to ensure that Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) can receive full capital releases.
This convoluted approach has sparked concerns regarding transparency and the ability of the National Assembly to perform proper oversight. By asking the legislature to revise budgets that are theoretically nearing their end or legally concluding, the executive is effectively rewriting the financial history of the past two years to match actual spending or future obligations. While the President described these measures as part of broader fiscal reforms to eventually eliminate “multiple concurrently running budgets,” the immediate effect is a clouded fiscal horizon where tracking the distinct performance of any single budget year becomes a herculean task for auditors and citizens alike.
The reaction from civil society has been sharp and critical, focusing largely on the erosion of the budget calendar and the opacity of managing multiple appropriation acts simultaneously. BudgIT, a prominent civic-tech organisation dedicated to fiscal transparency, has raised alarms over the “shambolic” nature of the current budgeting process. The organisation has consistently warned that the failure to adhere to a predictable January-to-December cycle disrupts national planning and private sector projections. With the 2026 budget presented so late in the year, and with the 2025 budget implementation now extended into the first quarter of 2026, BudgIT analysts argue that the government is creating a breeding ground for fiscal indiscipline, where tracking the “value for money” on capital projects becomes nearly impossible amidst the overlap of funds from different budget cycles.
Seun Onigbinde, the co-founder of BudgIT, has been particularly vocal about the deterioration of Nigeria’s budgetary framework. Reacting to the delays and the administration’s fiscal strategy, Onigbinde has described the situation as a “broken covenant,” referring to the loss of the predictable fiscal calendar established in the previous administration. He argues that the government has lost a sense of fiscal direction, noting that running concurrent budgets is not a sign of rigorous implementation but rather an indication of poor planning and a “gross disconnect” between the budget’s projections and the economic reality facing Nigerians. For Onigbinde, the sheer size of the deficit and the reliance on heavy borrowing to service debt—while simultaneously rewriting past budgets—suggests a system in distress, requiring not just legislative rubber-stamping, but a fundamental overhaul of how Nigeria plans and executes its national wealth.
