FG, release funds now

For two consecutive days during the first week of this month, local contractors under the aegis of the All Indigenous Contractors Association of Nigeria (AICAN) blocked the main entrance to the National Assembly, forcing lawmakers, staff and visitors to seek alternate routes to access the premises. The contractors were protesting government’s failure to pay them […]

For two consecutive days during the first week of this month, local contractors under the aegis of the All Indigenous Contractors Association of Nigeria (AICAN) blocked the main entrance to the National Assembly, forcing lawmakers, staff and visitors to seek alternate routes to access the premises. The contractors were protesting government’s failure to pay them for jobs done.

The National President of AICAN, Jackson Ifeanyi Nwosu, said the federal government had failed to pay contractors for capital projects executed since 2024, leaving many of them bankrupt.

“We didn’t just start this protest yesterday (Tuesday). We started months ago. This government owes us and they promised to pay. Since then, it’s been promises and failure, promises and failure. We can’t continue like this. We can’t feed our families anymore,” Nwosu said.

Contractors are not alone in federal government’s failure to meet its financial obligations. Constituency projects for federal lawmakers have been slashed by half to N500 million. At a town hall meeting with his constituents, Yusuf Gagdi, a member of the House of Representatives representing Pankshin/Kanke/Kanam Federal Constituency of Plateau State, expressed concern over the government’s failure to release funds for capital projects in the 2025 fiscal year.

He explained that although President Tinubu had initially approved an intervention of N1bn constituency projects for each member of the House of Representatives, the allocation was recently halved due to funding challenges.

“It was only last week that Mr. President reached out to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, saying that the 2025 budget cannot be funded. Then Mr. President reduced our constituency intervention project from N1bn to N500m,” Gagdi said.

Similarly, a fortnight ago, civil servants under the platform of the Federal Workers Forum (FWF) appealed to the government to pay their three-month outstanding wage award. The group, in a statement signed by its National Coordinator, Comrade Andrew Emelieze, complained that the payment had been inconsistent and appealed to the government to clear the backlog of promotion arrears.

Workers in federal Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) have also decried non release of capital expenditure in the year 2025.

They also alleged that the release of recurrent expenditure has been epileptic, noting that since January 2025, not much has been achieved in terms of fulfilling their mandates.

They also alleged that core ministries have been starved of capital expenditure except for non-treasury funded agencies that are sparingly undertaking capital projects.

Surprisingly, all this is coming when government admitted of making substantial savings and a leap in the amount it has been generating as revenue.

Reports said the federal government has saved substantial amounts since the withdrawal of the fuel subsidy, which used to cost about N380bn monthly. In the first quarter of 2025 alone, the government revenue from petroleum savings increased by over 500 per cent from N154bn to N836bn and the windfall is projected to exceed N11trn between 2023 and 2025.

The Chairman, Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Dr Zacch Adedeji, recently told State House correspondents that federal revenue had risen astronomically within two years, hitting N3.64trn in September 2025 alone from N711bn recorded in May 2023. He noted that non-oil revenue grew from N151bn to N1.06trn, oil taxes rose to N644bn from N96bn, while Value Added Tax (VAT) skyrocketed to N723bn from N218bn during the period.

In May, the Nigeria Customs Service said it realised N1.3trn in the first quarter of 2025, more than 100% of the N600bn it recorded during the same time in 2023. By the first half of the year, the Service had collected N3.68trn, outpacing its target by N390bn.

In September, the presidency disclosed that Nigeria generated N20.6trn in revenue between January and August 2025, up from N14.6trn recorded in the same period the previous year. In fact, recently President Tinubu was quoted as saying that the federal government had realised all its projected revenue for this year, ruling out any need to secure loan to meet its budgetary requirement. Ironically, the government secured approval from the National Assembly to raise N1.5 trillion from the domestic market to meet its budget needs.

Nigerians are therefore left confused at different postures of the government in this regard. More importantly, its brazen refusal to meet its budgetary proposals risks a loss of confidence in its promises. The starving of key ministries of funding may also result in loss of morale of its workers charged with executing its programmes.

In many countries, governments serve as the major boost to economy and go out of the way to introduce policies and programmes to stimulate the economy.

We at the Daily Trust believe that the federal government has the obligation to stimulate the economy more especially after admitting to meeting its revenue targets, introducing numerous taxes, receiving budget support from multilateral organisations and securing numerous loans.

We wish to remind the government of its constitutional duty of ensuring the wellbeing of its citizens by ensuring service delivery.