The 2023 presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Mr. Peter Obi, has criticised the federal fiscal direction under President Bola Tinubu’s administration, stating that Nigeria is operating without a clear budget cycle.
In a statement on Monday, Obi referred to the likely approval of the 2026 National Budget by the Nigerian Senate on March 17.
“Every Nigerian is asking an important question: which budget will Nigeria use this year? Will it be the budgets for 2023, 2024, 2025, or 2026, or some combination of all these years?” he asked.
Obi noted that, as of last year, the implementation of budget items from the 2023, 2024, and 2025 budgets followed a unique approach to budgeting, which continues to perpetuate a trend of fiscal recklessness.
According to him, President Tinubu inherited a legally signed ₦21.83 trillion budget for 2023. “A few months after taking office, he presented a ₦2.17 trillion supplementary budget that faced widespread criticism for prioritising benefits for public office holders at a time when Nigerians were enduring painful economic reforms without a credible social protection framework.
“Instead of restoring fiscal discipline, the President repeatedly expanded the 2023 budget without a clearly defined end date. The pattern persisted with the passage of a ₦35.06 trillion budget for 2024 and a ₦54.99 trillion budget for 2025. In less than three years, President Tinubu has exercised appropriation powers over more than ₦114 trillion in public spending.”
He, however, lamented that the government has failed to achieve even fifty per cent budget implementation, exposing a profound crisis of budget credibility.
Obi continued: “Alarmingly, until mid-2025, Nigeria was effectively operating with about three overlapping budgets, without clear legal or fiscal guidance on when each one expired or began. No serious country manages its budgets or fiscal operations in such a manner.
“Even more troubling is the government’s opaque decision to repeal the 2024 and 2025 budgets and re-enact them with extended implementation timelines. Nigerians have not seen these re-enacted budgets, and there is no public information regarding the specific capital projects included or their associated costs.”
The former Anambra State governor argued that this was not reform but fiscal obscurity elevated to the level of state policy.
He asserted that the proposed 2026 budget, despite still lacking critical details, indicates that the administration has no intention of addressing the structural weaknesses at the core of Nigeria’s public finance system.
Obi explained that the lack of transparency was not accidental but reflected a deliberate pattern of undermining public scrutiny and debate. He decried the Federal Government’s decision to stop publishing treasury reports on the OpenTreasury.gov.ng portal, thereby dismantling a vital transparency framework inherited from the previous administration.
“In 2025, no budget implementation report was released, regardless of how poor the performance was! No nation can operate with such recklessness and succeed,” he stated, stressing that every effort must be made to quickly return Nigeria to the January-December budget cycle that was inherited and mismanaged by the current government.
He added that such a change would enhance effective planning and tracking, promote transparency and accountability, and foster sustainable growth and development.
