Using the hashtag, #TheBudgetisaMess, BudgIT Nigeria made a crisp post Tuesday on X (formerly Twitter): “Just look at this, Nigerians! A Federal Polytechnic (NICTM) in Edo (State) has an allocation of N900 million to construct a road in Cross River (State). This same Polytechnic is renovating traditional palaces for N300 million and supplying motorcycles to Katsina and Bayelsa traders for N100 million to ease the effect of subsidy removal.” The post listed many other projects running into several billions of Naira scattered across the country to be undertaken by this same Federal Polytechnic in Edo State before the conclusion: “Nigerians, these insertions cannot continue.”

BudgIT, a civic organization that promotes transparency and active citizen engagement, has for years been raising awareness about the futility of the national budget. When Senator Abdul Ningi was suspended in March this year following his allegation of an ‘underground budget’ of N3.7 trillion, BudgIT Director and co-founder, Seun Onigbinde, waded in on the side of the senator. And in recent days, Onigbinde has been exposing the various insertions that make nonsense of the 2024 appropriation law. But this is a recurring issue on which I have also written dozens of columns and most times, I preface or conclude with the admonition by Laolu Samuel-Biyi that “If you want to keep hope alive in Nigeria, don’t look at the budget.” The challenge, of course, is that we cannot ignore the budget. Yet, if such an important planning instrument is reduced to sharing money between and among powerful interests, as we have seen over the years in Nigeria, how can our country develop?

Ordinarily, the national budget is the financial plan of a country with the principal objective to reduce inequalities by mobilising and allocating resources for investment in the public sector. Sadly, that has rarely been  the case n Nigeria. From buying motorcycles and wheelbarrows to construction of websites to multibillion Naira ‘empowerment’ projects, budgeting in Nigeria is simply about sharing money for items repeated annually.

After President Muhammadu Buhari signed the Appropriation (Repeal and Amendment) Act, 2020 into law, I wrote a two-part series, ‘A Nation on Ventilator’ where I highlighted these same problems. A few of the items I listed from the 2020 budget: ‘Supply of fertilizers to some operatives in Bauchi Central Senatorial District for N50 million’; ‘Grant to Kutiriko Jummat Mosque Committee, Agaie/Lapai Federal Constituency, Niger State’ for the sum of N10 million; grant to ‘Lapai Emirates Development Association’; ‘Construction of Admin Block at ECWA Theological College (Christian Academy) Zambuk, Yamaltu/Deba’ at N19 million; N40 million for ‘Community support in Iwo, Ejigbo and Ola Oluwa LGA in Osun West Senatorial district’ etc. In the budget of the federal ministry of water resources for the same year, there was even a vote of N2 million for the construction of a personal gym that had no location!

One may argue that the sums allocated for a number of these items are small but by the time you multiply them into thousands, you get a fair idea of the quantum of money deployed for things that do not belong in the national budget of a country. Besides, there is hardly any rigour in the description of these items. For instance, supply of ‘empowerment materials for youths and women in Ondo motorcycles, tricycles, grinding machine, fashion and training equipment, barbing and hair dressing equipment in Ondo Central Senatorial District’ gulped N60 million if you can decipher what that means. The ‘purchase of one unit of CAT Caterpillar grader equipment for rural road rehabilitation in Ondo Central Senatorial district’ took another N70 million. Assuming this caterpillar was purchased (and you find this kind of line item every year), who would take ownership? More noteworthy: That particular ‘project’ was inserted in the budget for the Public Complaints Commission!

I understand that the structure of our country encourages lack of accountability in a system that was founded on ‘sharing the national cake’. But as I have also argued on numerous occasions, the essence of budgeting is forward planning.  It takes three years to complete the process for one fiscal year in more organised societies—a year to formulate, another to legislate, and yet another to execute. The real issue is not even that National Assembly members insert ‘projects’ without any process but rather that most of these financial allocations are transactional. That explains why ‘road construction’ projects can be domiciled in the Ministry of Health while ‘empowerment’ can be under the Ministry of Labour and Productivity. Projects running into hundreds of millions of Naira are sometimes domiciled in ‘various locations’ or ‘some communities.’ Since it is not conceivable that these Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDA) officials will execute projects outside their mandates, it stands to reason that such monies are purposely ‘warehoused’ for certain individuals.

More concerning is that while this challenge has been with us for years, it is now being institutionalized under the current administration. Even if they didn’t do anything about it, previous presidents (from Olusegun Obasanjo to the late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua to Goodluck Jonathan and Muhammadu Buhari) were uncomfortable with the manner the budget was cannibalized by the National Assembly. But for the first time, we have a president who is not only comfortable with what the National Assembly has done with the 2024 budget but has also defended it. “I know the arithmetic of the budget and the numbers that I brought to the National Assembly, and I know what numbers came back. I appreciate all of you for the expeditious handling of the budget. Thank you very much,” President Bola Tinubu told the National Assembly leadership after the allegation by Ningi earlier in the year. “Those who are talking about malicious embellishment in the budget; they did not understand the arithmetic and did not refer to the baseline of what I brought. But your integrity is intact.”  

Perhaps the commendation is understandable because this presidency has also been adding luxury items that have more to do with its own indulgence than any attempt to promote the public good. Meanwhile, while signing the 2022 Appropriation Bill into law two years ago, Tinubu’s predecessor had expressed concern over “new insertions, outright removals, reductions and/or increases in the amounts allocated to projects.” These distortions, according to Buhari, “relate to matters that are basically the responsibilities of states and local governments, and do not appear to have been properly conceptualised, designed and costed. And many more projects have been added to the budgets of some MDAs with no consideration for the institutional capacity to execute the additional projects and/or for the incremental recurrent expenditure that may be required.’’

With a president who is more concerned about taking from the people (removal of subsidy, increased taxation etc.) than how such monies are expended, it is no surprise that concerns are not raised by the executive regarding the 2024 budget. But we cannot continue this way. When the national budget of a country is replete with ‘stakeholders annual forum’, ‘promotion of energy planning tools in six geopolitical zones’ etc., there can be no meaningful development. It is therefore important that we reform the budgeting process. And that will not happen until critical stakeholders in both the executive and legislature agree that we have a systematic problem which requires dealing with.

Section 88, subsection 2(b) of the 1999 Constitution expects the National Assembly to “expose corruption, inefficiency or waste in the execution or administration of laws within its legislative competence and in the disbursement or administration of funds appropriated by it”. An institution with such enormous powers cannot afford to be messing with the national budget every year. Let’s take the case of the National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA)—one of the agencies that BudgIT has highlighted in the 2024 budget.

Established in 2008 “to promote and support the use of space technology within and outside of Nigeria for the management of the full disaster cycle including prevention and mitigation”, the mandate of NASRDA is very clear. Despite that two of the three remaining satellites have expired, about 40% of the 2024 capital expenditure by NASRDA is going to ‘Supply Of Empowerment Materials To Indigent Women In Various Communities’, ‘Training And Empowerment Of Clergy, Traditional Rulers/Heads Of Communities On Conflict And Peace Resolution’, ‘Supply of Toyota Hilus Utility Sports For Sensitization Against Rape And Pre-Mature/Unwanted Pregnancy’, ‘Provision Of Sustainable Appliances’, ‘Provision And Supply Of Large Metal Dustbins, etc. How can anybody defend such budgetary provisions in a space agency?

But I do not want us to scapegoat the National Assembly. The argument of lawmakers has always been that if unelected ministers, heads of agencies and civil servants (who did not go through the rigour of any election) can insert whichever projects they want in the budget of the MDAs, why should they (elected representatives of the people) be precluded from doing the same? And this is a valid question. The issue, of course, is that the budget is a legislative responsibility, so we cannot but hold the lawmakers to account on the issue.

The essence of legislative oversight is to detect and help eliminate areas of waste within public agencies, make government accountable to the people, evaluate the impact of policies and programmes on the society while ensuring that all these are in promotion of the public good. A National Assembly whose members cannot appreciate that such onerous responsibility demands accountability will sooner or later lose the moral authority that surrounds its constitutional power. That exactly is the situation today. But we must also understand their own challenges.

On the second anniversary of the 8th National Assembly on 9th June 2017, I had the privilege of addressing members of the House of Representatives at plenary, at the invitation of then Speaker, Hon Yakubu Dogara. “While the Honourable members of this House were elected to make laws for the good governance of the country and through that bring developments to the people, what your constituents demand are instant gratifications. They want money to pay the school fees of their children, establish businesses and sometimes even to marry more wives,” I said in my presentation, which dwelt on the power of the legislature and the crisis of expectation on Nigerian lawmakers. “If you are not able to deliver on these, no matter how many bills you sponsor in the National Assembly or how efficient you are in your oversight functions, you are a failed lawmaker, in their estimation.” But I also made the lawmakers understand that the legislative ‘power of the purse’ confers on them the responsibility to serve as watchdogs on the executive in the way and manner national resources are allocated and expended.

Overall, we need a serious conversation on the budgeting process in Nigeria. The current arrangement does not, and cannot, serve the public good. As critical stakeholders in this democracy, our lawmakers (and their collaborators within the executive branch) must appreciate that, and course correct. In their own enlightened interest.

• You can follow me on my X (formerly Twitter) handle, @Olusegunverdict