Editorial
Aligning Budgets To Nigerians’ Needs
President Muhammadu Buhari signed the 2021 federal budget of N13.08 trillion into law on
Thursday, December 31, 2020. Tagged the “Budget of Economic Recovery and Resilience”, it comprises a capital expenditure of N4,125,149,354,222 trillion and recurrent expenditure of N5,641,970,060,680 trillion, statutory transfer of N496,528,471,273 billion, N3.324 trillion for debt servicing, supplementary capital allocation of N1,060,751,051,650 trillion, and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate of 3.00 per cent.
Budgets globally aim to have a guide on revenue generation and spending to prevent confusion. Every arm, tier, and agency of government formulates its budget for the fiscal year and they are not expected to spend above the approved limits. But oftentimes that is not the case in Nigeria as some agencies expend unapproved monies with impunity.
Following the presidential assent to the 2021 budget, many concerns are expressed as to whether the budget addresses the people’s necessities and how the document can be correctly implemented in line with the existing fiscal and monetary laws.
The executive and legislative arms of government have always produced yearly Appropriation Acts. But successive budgets for several decades have not been implemented satisfactorily. Consequently, administration after administration has been unable to realise the grand objectives of the serial economic plans.
Regrettably, our national budgets are not aligned with the country’s development goals. With the demise of national development planning, budgets are prepared without plan or strategic framework. It is like building a huge edifice without an architectural drawing. That is why government’s promises cannot be actualised because there is no effective budget policy.
It might be necessary, at this juncture, to ask: how far have budgets gone to alleviate some of the endemic problems in Nigeria? We do not just mean the federal budget but all the state budgets put together. Every year, 38 budgets are rolled out including those of the federal government, 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja.
To what extent have budgets ameliorated the problem of poor electricity, water supply, health care, education, dilapidated roads, unemployment, insecurity, etc? Are Nigerians faring better now compared with last year when the budget was passed? What systematic changes have occurred? What periodic solutions have been provided or on-going? What difference has occurred in the life of an average Nigerian?
This is even more worrisome when the citizens are rarely and inadequately consulted or engaged in budget planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation. In most cases, the national and state budgets do not adequately reflect the expectations and aspirations of the citizens.
This situation mainly exists because the budgeting process in Nigeria is faulty. It is split only between the legislative and the executive. The processes are not open and active participation is not encouraged. Most access to information and civic participation at best occurs at the seldom held public hearing stage in the House of Representatives and the Senate.
At the planning stages of our budgets, Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and traditional rulers being representatives of the people ought to be enabled or encouraged to communicate their needs and concerns to the government and possibly contribute to the Medium-Term Revenue Framework and the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF), or even the draft budget.
Citizen participation in budget hearings is significant. It can be done through involvement and advocating for more public hearings on a budget in the National Assembly. These and others are ways to sustain and improve access to information and civic pursuit in the different phases of budget preparations.
The failure of budgets across the country is heart-breaking. That is why pessimists call budgeting in the country annual ritual. That has been the case since 1999 when the present democratic dispensation began and it was thought that the era of military impunity was over. Indeed, our rogue budgets are merely rituals; they seem not to be made to change anything.
And really, how can there be change when on average, every year, 70 per cent of our budgets go for recurrent expenditure while only 30 per cent is for capital expenditure. How can an underdeveloped country like Nigeria develop when only a fraction of the annual budgets is put for capital projects?
Faced with corruption, neither the recurrent budget nor the capital spending achieves its target. The inability of many state governments to pay salaries, pension benefits and other entitlements to workers underscores the failure of recurrent expenditure. Sadly enough, the Federal Government is gradually contracting the disease and is no longer able to pay workers’ salaries promptly.
There seems to be no law that compels governments to account for the previous budget before announcing a new one. As a way out, there is a need for such a law, at all levels, to make public, at the end of each financial year, the performance of the previous year’s budget; what was achieved and what is left, which would form the basis for making a new budget.
Beyond the usual pomp that characterises budget signings in our country, we hope that President Muhammadu Buhari’s 2021 budget, unlike previous appropriations, will operate within standard budget parameters to attain its broad objectives of meeting policy goals and development needs of Nigerians.
There are moments in the life of a legislature when plain speaking becomes a public service. Senator Adams Oshiomhole provided such a moment on the floor of the Senate when he accused the Minister of Works, Senator David Umahi, of manifestly neglecting critical federal arteries in Edo and Delta States, and implored his colleagues to prevail on the Minister to adopt a more equitable and genuinely national approach to road infrastructure delivery. It was blunt, it was uncomfortable, and it was necessary.
The specifics of his complaint deserve restating. Drawing attention to the recent approval of some 20 new road projects despite the parlous state of existing ones, the former Edo State governor lamented that Nigerians cannot travel from Benin to Warri, Benin to Asaba, Benin to Auchi, or Auchi to Okene without encountering severe distress. He alleged a deliberate omission of these corridors from the national budget in the last three years, save for palliative interventions directed by President Bola Tinubu through tax credit arrangements. His question — “What have we done wrong?” — resonates far beyond the chambers of the National Assembly.
We lend our full and unequivocal support to that call. The Auchi-Benin Road, for instance, has been in a deplorable and near-impassable condition for several years, turning what should be a two-hour journey into an all-day ordeal of broken axles, extortionate fares, and despondent commuters. The media have, on multiple occasions, chronicled the suffering of motorists, traders, and students who ply that route. To describe it as a federal road today is to stretch the meaning of the term beyond recognition.
This pattern of sidelining is not confined to Edo or Delta. Even here in Rivers State, the disposition of the Federal Ministry of Works has left much to be desired, particularly along the Eleme axis of the East-West Road. That road, which ought to be a flagship of federal presence in the Niger Delta, has remained in a wretched state for long. Those who use it daily — workers at the Eleme Petrochemical Complex, the two refineries, Onne Port, and the countless ancillary industries — can attest to its deterioration. Work has proceeded in fits and starts without the sustained urgency such a strategic road demands.
The Eleme stretch is not a mere intra-state byway. It is the gateway to the nation’s economic jugular. According to the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing’s 2023 Highway Condition Survey, only about 35 per cent of the country’s 36,000 kilometres of federal roads are rated as being in good or fair condition, with the remainder classified as poor or very poor. The East-West Road, conceived in the 1970s to bind the entire Niger Delta, remains unfinished in critical sections more than four decades after. If it had been treated as a priority, the perennial gridlock, carnage, and economic loss on the Eleme-Refinery junction would have long been consigned to history.
The irony is as painful as it is glaring. The Niger Delta remains the goose that lays the golden eggs. Data from the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative [NEITI 2023 Oil and Gas Audit] show that the region still accounts for over 78 per cent of Nigeria’s federally collected export earnings and about 65 per cent of total government revenue. The National Bureau of Statistics [NBS Foreign Trade Report Q4 2024] similarly confirms that crude oil continues to dominate export receipts. By every metric of equity and economic logic, a region that sustains the national purse deserves first-rate consideration in the allocation of infrastructure, not afterthoughts and tokenism.
Road infrastructure is not largesse to be dispensed by favour; it is the skeleton upon which commerce, cohesion, and citizenship hang. When contracts are concentrated in one geopolitical zone while other zones are left to contend with craters, it erodes trust in the federation itself. The World Bank’s Nigeria Development Update [June 2023] estimated that poor transport connectivity inflates the cost of moving goods by up to 40 per cent and costs the Nigerian economy an estimated $1.5 billion annually in lost man-hours and vehicle maintenance. If we profess to be one country, then equity must be the compass that guides key institutions before any project is executed. Development must spread round, not pool in one place as though other regions do not matter.
There is also a grave security dimension that can no longer be ignored. The deplorable condition of federal roads has become a veritable enabler of criminality. The NBS Crime Experience and Security Perception Survey reported over 2.5 million incidents of kidnapping-related occurrences nationally, with transport workers identifying bad road spots as prime ambush points. When vehicles are forced to crawl at 10 kilometres per hour through failed sections at Auchi, Sapele Road, or Eleme, they become sitting ducks for armed gangs. Fixing bad roads, therefore, is not merely about convenience; it is about safeguarding lives.
By his intervention, Senator Oshiomhole has hit the nail on the head and reminded Minister Umahi of a fundamental constitutional truth: public office is held in trust. The Ministry of Works is not a personal estate where contracts are awarded according to whim or political convenience. It is a national institution funded by the collective resources of Nigerians, including the oil and gas rents from the very communities whose roads are now neglected. The Minister must demonstrate balance, transparency, and a pan-Nigerian outlook in the distribution of projects that impact the daily existence of citizens. Selective neglect breeds suspicion, and suspicion is corrosive at a time when the nation is preaching unity, oneness, equity, and justice.
Consequently, the National Assembly must go beyond rhetoric and assert its oversight powers with vigour. Sections 88 and 89 of the 1999 Constitution [as amended] empower the legislature to investigate and expose any maladministration in the execution of federal projects. If an office holder is not acting rightly, it is the duty of the Senate and the House of Representatives to call him to order. Oversight must not be reduced to budget approval ceremonies; it must translate to field verification, public hearings, and insistence that the Federal Character principle, as enshrined in Section 14(3) of the Constitution, reflects in road awards.
Let the Auchi-Okene, Benin-Warri, Benin-Asaba, and Eleme East-West gangways be restored to motorable dignity. Let priority be given to completing existing, economically vital roads before embarking on new ones. If those who, through their resources, sustain the federation are sidelined in the distribution of tangible dividends, it tells poorly of our nationhood. Bad roads must be fixed, and they must be fixed now, with fairness as the guiding standard.
