Late arriving Budget 2026: Matters arising

All things being equal, Nigerians may once more be treated to another late budget for 2026, courtesy of its out-of-time presentation to the National Assembly by President Bola Tinubu. The exercise may be headed for a November 2025 date instead of the September – October affair. It is easily recalled that in the same manner, […]

All things being equal, Nigerians may once more be treated to another late budget for 2026, courtesy of its out-of-time presentation to the National Assembly by President Bola Tinubu. The exercise may be headed for a November 2025 date instead of the September – October affair.

It is easily recalled that in the same manner, the presentation of the 2024 budget estimates was on November 29, 2023, which necessitated a scramble of sorts, ranging from the Presidency and MDAs, to the respective offices of the National Assembly, with legislators and staff sleeping over at the workplace, just to meet up with the constitutional deadline of passing the budget into law before January 1, 2024.

In the same vein, while Budget 2025 was presented to the National Assembly on December 18, 2024, as late as December 17, 2024, the Federal Executive Council (FEC) was still adjusting the final details of the package.

With this trend, it remains established that all through his over two years, the administration of Bola Tinubu has at best distorted the country’s fiscal template by late budgeting disposition, which has significant implications for the economy, even as such may seem not to bother the establishment.

Hardly is any other factor wreaking as much debilitating effect on the country’s fiscal terrain as late budgeting. While it may be treated as a benign factor in the administration’s fiscal considerations, such a disposition not only vitiates the sanctity that should be accorded the country’s budgeting culture but also accentuates the imperative for re-jigging by the president, of the internal processes that eventually define the fiscal trajectory and fortunes of the country.

While there may be no specific timetable cast in stone for the presentation of a particular year’s budget to the National Assembly by the president, at least three factors qualify to determine a more proactive disposition to this situation.

First is the constitutional provision for the budget of any particular year to be presented during the preceding year. Second is the statutory need, as well as the discretional consideration to confine the operation of any budget within the constitutionally defined span of a fiscal year, being January 1 and December 31 of the particular year.

Thirdly is the need to provide for enough time for appropriate legislative scrutiny of the budget package. With the average standing or ad hoc committee of the National Assembly saddled with the responsibility of over-sighting as many as six MDAs in some cases, along with other legislative functions, much of the scrutiny exercises carried out are often inadequate. This condition creates the loopholes that are often exploited by unscrupulous public officials to violate and exploit clear-cut but compromised statutory fiscal provisions for personal gratification.

Incidentally, the third factor of provision of adequate time for thorough legislative scrutiny ostensibly remains the most significant factor as it is the actual intent of the constitution for involving the National Assembly at the centre, as well as state assemblies in the budget process, and even assigning the power over the country’s purse (so to say), to the legislative arm.

Seen against the foregoing and even in a broader context, the syndrome of late budget exercise infests the country with significant fiscal dysfunctionality to the extent of distorting planning targets, promoting lack of accountability, along with other shortcomings in the administration. 

In fact, it is primarily for the reason of late budget preparation that the country has been indulging in the questionable practice of extending the implementation of a particular year’s budget late into the succeeding year, thereby distorting the boundaries between the respective annual fiscal regimes.  For instance, the National Assembly, in exercise of its powers over the country’s purse, has approved the extension of the implementation of the capital component of the 2024 budget up to December 31, 2025.

 The immediate argument to justify this situation is that the MDAs should be given more time to complete the implementation of outstanding projects slated for 2024, which were affected ostensibly by delays in funding. 

This alibi does not preclude the possibility of mixing up budget entries for 2024 and 2025 to create administrative miasma; hence avenues for diverting public funds for personal gains. Among other considerations, this tendency has been identified as one of the most potent drivers of institutionalised corruption in Nigeria’s public service establishments. It is likened to giving the corruptly disposed official both the key to the strong room and the avenue to siphon the loot.

One of the cardinal features of good governance is that a government not only has the capacity to make laws for the society but also the political will to obey the very laws of the land. Non-compliance with such disposition renders the government a lawless imposition on the citizenry; hence, it attracts for itself, resentments by the citizens as an unwanted dispensation.

With respect to the administration of Bola Tinubu, there have been several instances of marked deviation from the beaten path of rectitude in governance, which have not earned for it any credit with respect to public confidence that it can carry the country to the ‘promised land’. To bear itself down with the additional perception of un-seriousness with respect to the country’s fiscal regime is one burden the president needs to avoid.

That is why President Bola Tinubu needs to recalibrate the direction of his administration towards aligning with street level appeal for his continued stay in office in contrast to whatever false narratives he may be fed by his handlers. One area for consideration is the envelop of issue and processes associated with the forthcoming Budget 2026.