Do Nigerians Still Need Constituency projects? Yes, but Not in Their Current Form

Across rural communities and city slums, Nigerians are digging their own boreholes, repairing classrooms, and raising money on WhatsApp to keep health centers alive, while billions in constituency projects disappear each year in politics and in invisible projects. Nigerians clearly need a way for public money to meet their needs. But what they have is […]

Across rural communities and city slums, Nigerians are digging their own boreholes, repairing classrooms, and raising money on WhatsApp to keep health centers alive, while billions in constituency projects disappear each year in politics and in invisible projects. Nigerians clearly need a way for public money to meet their needs. But what they have is a system most citizens do not understand, and few genuinely trust.

The constituency project is an annual multibillion-naira drain on the federal budget. Can we turn this controversial budget line into a democratic Community Development Facility that supports local priorities, promotes community competition, and uses public money to unlock local philanthropy rather than merely distribute political favours?

Recently, I sat in on a discussion about the constituency projects. One panelist argued that the constituency project has failed its purpose and should be scrapped. It is a form of subsidy that has become riddled with corruption and mismanagement; it no longer serves development needs. Instead, it serves the gluttony of Nigerian politicians and should be scrapped. It was a convincing argument, except that the gentleman offered no practical counterargument. Neither could he argue against the fact that Nigerian communities are in urgent need of health centers with medicines and doctors, boreholes that actually produce water, primary schools with tables, chairs and teachers, and roads that link their communities to markets for their farm produce.

That is why it would be too easy and hasty to conclude that Nigerians no longer need a constituency-level development mechanism. They do. Communities still need a clear pathway through which public resources can respond to urgent, place-specific needs that larger bureaucracies often overlook or delay. The challenge is that Nigeria built a legitimate community-facing idea (the constituency budget) on a weak institutional foundation.

BudgIT’s tracking work captures this dual reality well. Between 2009 and 2019, more than ₦1 trillion was allocated to constituency projects, covering 15,859 projects in 7,589 locations across 26 states. Around 7,000 of those projects were completed, showing that the instrument has delivered some value and should not be dismissed as entirely empty. Yet the same evidence also points to abandoned projects, poor execution, vague descriptions, and projects that were difficult for citizens to trace.

The problem, then, is not the concept of local development financing itself. It is how constituency projects are currently structured and governed.
BudgIT’s more recent budget analysis suggests the scale of the problem has outgrown the old justifications. In the 2025 budget, it reported about 11,122 constituency projects worth roughly ₦6.93 trillion, far beyond the traditional Zonal Intervention Projects envelope. Earlier, in 2022, it raised concerns that about ₦58.2 billion of the standard ₦100 billion constituency projects allocation went to vaguely defined “empowerment” programmes, many without specific locations. These reports suggest the challenge with constituency projects is both political and technical.

Anti-corruption efforts reinforce the same conclusion. Since 2019, ICPC’s Constituency and Executive Projects Tracking Initiative has tracked about ₦219.8 billion in projects, recovered significant sums in cash and assets, and compelled contractors to return to project sites. The tracking reports exposed a system that is heavily political, relying on the informal discretion of a few unaccountable actors and too little on robust design.

Agora Policy’s 2025 memo offers perhaps the most balanced assessment. It acknowledges that constituency projects arose from a political logic tied to representation and inclusion, but concludes that the current model suffers from weak transparency, blurred lines between legislative and executive roles, and distortions in public spending priorities. Its preferred direction is not abolition but refinement: a formal framework, clearer institutional responsibilities, and a more disciplined implementation model.
That refinement should now go further. Nigeria should not only clean up constituency projects but also democratize them.

A more credible path forward is to redesign part of constituency funding as a Community Development Facility. This would replace the image of constituency budgets as opaque insertions into the national budget with a clearer concept: a statutory, rules-based pool for small and medium community development projects. The purpose would not be to remove politics entirely; no public funding mechanism can do that. Instead, it would shift from the personalized discretion of politically exposed actors to public criteria and from top-down allocation to structured community participation.
Under this model, communities would not simply wait to be selected. Qualified local actors would be able to compete for support through open calls and published criteria. Eligible applicants could include community development associations, women’s groups, youth groups, faith-based development organisations, local nonprofits, cooperatives, and other credible grassroots organisations with basic governance and financial capacity.

The case for this is straightforward. Communities often know their urgent needs better than distant ministries. When they are allowed to shape proposals, contribute local knowledge, and monitor implementation closely, projects are more likely to be relevant and more likely to endure. A community-based facility would also make it easier to move away from vague, ghost “empowerment” allocations and toward clearer project windows, such as primary healthcare, girls’ education, water and sanitation, food security, community infrastructure, and local resilience.

But Nigeria can go even further in reforming constituency projects by converting part of the annual allocations into a pool to unlock local philanthropy.

Nigerian communities are not passive recipients of development. Across the country, people already organise and give through age-grade associations, hometown unions, religious bodies, local levies, alumni networks, and diaspora contributions. WACSI and other African philanthropy actors have increasingly argued that stronger local giving is essential to reducing overreliance on international aid and building more sustainable local institutions.

At a time of a global international aid crisis, the need to shift from international aid is more urgent. Reports from northern Nigeria show how deep donor cuts are affecting food assistance and basic services, while local organisations that once relied on external grants are under growing financial pressure. In that context, the question is not only how the government should spend better, but how public money can be used to mobilise more local co-investment and strengthen community resilience.

A constituency-linked Community Development Facility could therefore include a Local Philanthropy Matching Window. Under this window, communities that raise resources for credible projects through diaspora groups, hometown unions, age-grade associations, community development associations, faith communities, or local philanthropists could apply for matching grants from the public pool. A community that mobilises funds to rehabilitate a primary school, equip a primary health center, improve a water scheme, or support livelihoods could receive a 1:1 or 2:1 public match, subject to published rules, ceilings, and verification requirements.

This would convert part of the constituency budget from a direct spending line into catalytic capital. Instead of government acting only as an allocator, it would act as a multiplier. Public funds would not replace community effort; they would strengthen it.

A catalytic pool that provides matching funds for community development projects is not new. Matching models are already used in community-led development. In 2024, the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) Foundation and the United States African Development Foundation (USADF) announced matching grants to support a community-led initiative in Port Harcourt linked to Nigerian basketball player Precious Achiuwa, using a multiplier structure that turned a $25,000 initial commitment into a combined $75,000 investment. The project demonstrates that well-designed matching grants can crowd in philanthropy, reward local initiative, and deepen ownership.

A two-part Community Development Facility, with one arm for competitive community projects and another for local philanthropy matching grants, would offer several advantages.

First, it would preserve the developmental rationale for constituency funding while reducing the opacity that has weakened public trust. Second, it would reward initiative by supporting communities that organise, contribute, and plan. Third, it would help stretch scarce public resources further at a time of fiscal pressure and shrinking aid. Fourth, it would foster a healthier relationship between state and society by framing government not simply as a patron but as a partner.

Of course, this approach would need safeguards. Wealthier communities may be better positioned to raise matching funds than poorer ones, and diaspora-rich areas could have an advantage. Therefore, the facility should include poverty-sensitive formulas, lower counterpart requirements for poorer communities, special windows for disadvantaged or conflict-affected areas, transparent scoring criteria, and technical support for weaker applicants. A democratic, inclusive selection and award committee can be established to institutionalize transparency, accountability, and community ownership.
The strength of this approach is that it avoids two weak positions. It does not romanticize the current constituency project system, because evidence from BudgIT, ICPC, and Agora Policy shows that the present model is too vulnerable to abuse to be defended unchanged. But it also does not pretend that Nigeria can simply wish away the need for place-based development funding.

Instead, it offers a middle path rooted in Nigeria’s realities: communities need local development support; public funds need stronger oversight; and local philanthropy deserves a more intentional role in development finance. At a time of tightening budgets and declining aid, constituency spending should no longer be judged solely by how much it allocates, but by how much trust, ownership, and co-investment it can generate.

That is the opportunity now before the National Assembly. It can continue to defend constituency projects as they are and absorb the political cost of an increasingly distrusted model. Or it can redesign part of the constituency budget into a transparent Community Development Facility that supports grassroots priorities, galvanizes competitive community participation, and uses matching grants to turn local philanthropy into a partner in development. The second path would not solve every problem, but it would move Nigeria much closer to a constituency development system that communities recognize as their own.

Olaide, Development and Philanthropy expert, can be reached via [email protected]