2025 budget: Obi decries N/Assembly’s alleged insertion of N7trn projects

The presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in 2023 elections, Peter Obi, has decried the alleged insertion of about N7trn worth of projects into the 2025 budget, describing it as distressing. Daily Trust reports that BudgIT, a civic-tech non-profit organisation, on Tuesday said it uncovered 11,122 projects worth N6.9 trillion inserted by the National […]

The presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in 2023 elections, Peter Obi, has decried the alleged insertion of about N7trn worth of projects into the 2025 budget, describing it as distressing.

Daily Trust reports that BudgIT, a civic-tech non-profit organisation, on Tuesday said it uncovered 11,122 projects worth N6.9 trillion inserted by the National Assembly into the budget.

Obi, on Wednesday on his X handle lamented that Nigeria remains a relentless scene of corruption as he has consistently maintained that for this country to make progress, Nigeria must cease to function as a crime scene and be repositioned for genuine development.

“This entrenched corruption – persistent and deeply rooted – must be nipped in the bud if there is to be any meaningful turnaround. How else can we explain the distressing revelations by BudgIT, which uncovered a staggering N7 trillion in questionable projects inserted into the 2025 national budget? I am convinced that this figure represents only a fraction of the actual amount misappropriated.

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“These findings are deeply troubling and confirm my long-held position that we have turned our country into a crime scene. We must urgently and aggressively combat corruption, misappropriation, and fiscal recklessness in order to manage our resources effectively and efficiently, and invest in critical areas of development: health, education, and lifting our people out of poverty.

“The N7 trillion uncovered as fraudulently inserted into the 2025 budget is even greater than the combined allocations to the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, and the Ministry of Agriculture – ministries that are fundamental to national development,” Obi said.

He said to be precise, the Ministry of Education was allocated N3.52 trillion, the Ministry of Health received N2.48 trillion, the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation was allocated N260 billion; and the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security received N636.08 billion.

He said, “Combined, these four ministries were allocated N6.896 trillion -an already inflated amount -yet still less than the N7 trillion dubiously inserted into the budget. That N7 trillion figure is even more than the N6.1 trillion allocated to national security -at a time when Nigeria is among the most terrorised nations in the world.

“This brazen impunity by our leaders is precisely why the country cannot invest adequately in education -hence the existence of nearly 20 million out-of-school children. It is the same corruption that has crippled primary healthcare, resulting in alarming levels of malnourished children.”

Obi said these glaring acts of corruption reinforce his position that Nigeria has been reduced to a crime scene.

He said, “We must confront this corruption, misappropriation, and fiscal recklessness with unwavering resolve. Our national resources must be transparently managed and strategically invested in key sectors -health, education, and poverty alleviation—to secure a better future for our people. We must turn this nation around.”