The 2025 Nigerian Federal Budget, titled “Budget of Restoration: Securing Peace, Rebuilding Prosperity,” has drawn widespread criticism for its inflated size, unrealistic revenue assumptions, and pervasive corruption. While the government projects ambitious goals in security, infrastructure, education, health, and agriculture, the budget’s execution and underlying assumptions raise serious concerns about fiscal discipline and transparency.
The approved budget of nearly ₦55 trillion far exceeds the projected revenue of about ₦41.9 trillion, creating a deficit of over ₦13 trillion. This gap stems from overly optimistic assumptions, including crude oil production at 2.06 million barrels per day, an exchange rate improving from ₦1,700 to ₦1,400 per dollar, and inflation dropping from 34.6% to 15%. Experts, including financial analyst Kalu Aja (@FinPlanKaluAja1), have flagged these assumptions as disconnected from Nigeria’s current economic realities.
Adding complexity is the overlap of the 2023, 2024, and 2025 budgets running simultaneously, which complicates fiscal management and regulatory compliance.
A major issue is the rampant budget padding uncovered by civic group BudgIT, which identified 11,122 suspicious projects worth ₦6.93 trillion inserted by lawmakers without clear justification. This padding accounts for roughly 12.5% of the entire budget. For example, the Ministry of Agriculture’s capital budget ballooned from ₦242.5 billion to ₦1.95 trillion due to 4,371 inserted projects worth ₦1.72 trillion, including inexplicable items like streetlights and boreholes unrelated to agriculture.
Such frivolous and duplicated items, alongside questionable expenditures like training hairdressers under the Ministry of Agriculture, expose a culture of reckless corruption and mismanagement, as highlighted by Kalu Aja.
Dr. Joe Abah’s Perspective: “Miracle Budgeting” and Fiscal Irresponsibility
Dr. Joe Abah, former Director-General of the Bureau of Public Service Reforms, has publicly criticized the 2025 budget for its lack of realism. He describes it as a return to “miracle budgeting,” where assumptions are based more on hope than hard economic data. In his words, relying on crude oil production targets and revenue projections that have historically been unmet is akin to expecting “miracle alerts” to fill the treasury.
Dr. Abah emphasizes that unrealistic budgeting leads to underfunded human development sectors like health and education, stalled infrastructure projects, and worsened poverty due to prioritizing debt servicing over productive investments. He warns that such fiscal irresponsibility erodes investor confidence and hampers long-term economic planning.
Beyond padding, the budget also include numerous frivolous expenditures, unnecessary vehicles, vague empowerment programs, and inflated overhead costs that divert resources from critical sectors. Debt servicing alone consumes over ₦15 trillion, further constraining funds for development.
There is an urgent Need for Transparency and Realism
The 2025 Nigerian budget exemplifies how inflated figures, unrealistic revenue assumptions, and widespread corruption can deepen fiscal deficits and perpetuate economic hardship. The disconnect between budget size and economic realities, combined with the insertion of politically motivated projects, undermines fiscal discipline and public trust.
Voices like Kalu Aja and Dr. Joe Abah calls for urgent reforms to enhance budget transparency, enforce accountability, and ground fiscal planning in realistic assumptions. Without such reforms, Nigeria risks continuing a cycle of “miracle budgeting” that fails to deliver tangible benefits to its citizens and threatens the country’s economic stability.
