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President Bola Tinubu has asked the Senate to repeal and re-enact the 2024 Appropriation Act in order to end the practice of running multiple budgets within a single fiscal year.
The president’s request was conveyed in a letter read at plenary on Wednesday by the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio.
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The 2024 budget, which was originally passed on 30 December with a total expenditure of ₦28.7 trillion, is proposed to be amended to ₦43.56 trillion.
Under the revised proposal, ₦1 trillion is earmarked for statutory transfers, ₦8.2 trillion for debt servicing, ₦11.2 trillion for recurrent non-debt expenditure, while ₦22.2 trillion is allocated to capital expenditure and development fund contributions.
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In the letter, President Tinubu explained that the repeal and re-enactment, if approved, would run until 31 December and would bring an end to the practice of operating multiple budgets, while ensuring reasonable and unprecedentedly high capital performance rates for the 2024 and 2025 capital budgets.
“The bill seeks to authorise the issue from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation of the sum of N43,561,041,744,507, comprising N1 trillion for statutory transfers, N8.2 trillion for debt service, N11.2 trillion for recurrence non-debt expenditure, N22.2 trillion for capital expenditure and development fund contribution for the year ending 31st December 2025 as provided in the Bill.
“This Bill is submitted to bring an end to the practice of running multiple budgets currently while at the same time ensuring reasonable, indeed unprecedentedly high capital performance rates on the 2024 and 2025 capital budgets,” the letter read.
He noted that the proposed legislation would also provide a transparent and constitutionally grounded appropriation framework for consolidating and funding critical, time-sensitive expenditures arising from emergency situations, with the aim of advancing national security and the overall well-being of Nigerians.
“It further provides through a transparent and constitutionally grounded appropriation mechanism for the orderly consolidation and appropriation of critical time-sensitive expenditures necessarily undertaken in respect to emergency exigencies, advancing the collective well-being of Nigerians and safeguarding national security, while reinforcing fiscal discipline, accountability and prudent public financial management,” he said.
The president noted that the bill further strengthens fiscal discipline and accountability by mandating that appropriated funds are released and applied strictly for their specified purposes, requiring prior approval of the National Assembly for any virement, setting conditions for corrigenda where genuine errors affect implementation, and ensuring separate recording of excess revenue, which can only be spent with legislative approval.
“The Senate may wish to note that the Bill also strengthens implementation discipline and accountability by, among others, other provisions requiring that appropriation funds are released and applied strictly for the purposes specified in the Schedules, providing that environment may only be affected with prior approval of the National Assembly, setting out conditions for corrigenda where genuine efforts, genuine errors may hinder implementation, requiring separate recording of excess revenue and limiting its expenditure to an act or approval of the National Assembly.
“I am mandating due process compliance and periodic reporting on releases and agency revenues and assistance,” the letter stated.
Nigeria’s budget overlapping
Nigeria’s continuous extension of the capital component of previous budgets has long been a source of concern.
Under the current administration, the Senate led by Mr Akpabio has approved multiple overlapping budgets for President Tinubu’s government.
For instance, in 2024, Nigeria operated three budgets. They are the N21.8 trillion 2023 budget, the N2.17 trillion 2023 supplementary, and the N28.7 trillion 2024 appropriation.
Though the first two were passed by the ninth National Assembly during the administration of the late former President Muhammadu Buhari, President Bola Tinubu extended their capital components first to June and later to December 2024, even as the 2024 budget was already in force.
The trend continued in 2025, when the capital component of the 2024 budget, which should have ended in December 2024, was extended twice—first to June 2025 and then to December 2025. As a result, the country is currently running two budgets simultaneously: the extended 2024 budget and the 2025 budget of about N54.2 trillion, which lawmakers raised by N7 billion from the president’s initial proposal.
Many have said that Nigeria had never implemented three budgets in one year since the restoration of democracy in 1999.
