Strange capital votes in 2026 federal budget

The federal budget for the 2026 fiscal year, with the tag “Budget of Consolidation, Renewed Resilience, and Shared Prosperity,” which President Bola Ahmed Tinubu tabled before the National Assembly on December 19, 2025, is brimming with what may be described as strange capital votes. Totalling N58.1 trillion, the budget is made up of capital expenditure of N25.08 trillion; recurrent (non-debt) expenditure of N15.25 trillion; and debt servicing of N15.52 trillion, with the defence and security sector allocated the lion’s share of N5.41 trillion.

At face value, the budget is huge, but it carries a huge debt burden, a deficit of N23.85, which amounts to 4.28 per cent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). It is for this reason that the government ought to have gone through the provisions with a fine-tooth comb before subjecting it to the National Assembly’s consideration.

A recent analysis of the 2026 budget by Daily Trust revealed that the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) dedicates around 73 per cent (N335 billion) of its appropriation to the Maitama District. The FCT Administration is focusing heavily on infrastructure like roads and utilities for Maitama and the emerging Maitama II area, a significant concentration in this high-profile district. The disproportion in the capital budget allocation is evident when one considers the fact that Maitama is just one of 60 districts in the six area councils of the FCT. The high concentration of infrastructural projects in Maitama denies about 59 other communities of development projects.

Furthermore, in the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security’s budget there are several questionable projects. An instant is a single line item for “Research and Development” at the ministry’s headquarters for which the sum of N252.2 billion has been allocated without a breakdown of specific programmes, institutions, or expected outcomes. It is totally unacceptable that such a huge sum of money would go into projects that have no description. There is also a project that is obviously misaligned. The Agricultural Research Council of Nigeria (ARCN) allocated N700 million for “sensitisation against domestic violence in three selected states in the South-South region,” a project that is far outside its core mandate of agricultural research. Also, the National Agricultural Land Development Authority (NALDA) plans to spend over N2 billion on non-agricultural projects, including building mini-stadiums and religious centres in Gombe State. Another suspicious infrastructure cost in the ministry is a N19 billion headquarters saga, where funds are allocated for new, potentially unnecessary construction while previous projects remain unfinished. There is a further repetition of “grain supply” projects across multiple budget lines, raising concerns about potential inefficiency and misappropriation of funds.

Also, the Rural Electrification Agency (REA) proposed N8.75 billion for solar projects in Kano, the home state of the Managing Director of REA, Alhaji Abba Aliyu and Oyo State, from where the Minister of Power, Chief Adebayo Adelabu, secured solar power worth about N2.8 billion.

The project’s focus on solar streetlights and grid extensions is derived from the REA’s aim to electrify 17.5 million Nigerians under its Distributed Access through Renewable Energy Scale-up (DARES) initiative.  The project is significant because Nigeria has one of the largest electricity access deficits globally. DARES represents a scaling-up of renewable energy solutions to close this gap, reduce reliance on diesel generators, and promote climate-friendly development.  A sum of $750 million, procured from the World Bank, is being used to provide solar-powered electricity to what are considered to be unserved and underserved communities in the country.

Of this amount, N5.95 billion of the budget was allocated for solar streetlights in Rano, Bunkure, Kibiya, and other LGAs, plus grid extensions and economic boosting projects in Kano State, but this budget allocation highlights concerns about potential regional bias in project distribution, with significant sums allocated to specific LGAs in Kano. The communities in Kano and Oyo States may actually meet the requirement of being underserved, but such a high concentration of federal projects in the states would deny other equally underprivileged communities the opportunity of benefiting from a federal government facility.

The strange votes in the budget defeat the fiscal discipline that the government promises to enforce in 2026, with a directive to Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) to carry over 70 per cent of their approved 2025 capital allocations to 2026, aiming to eliminate the perennial issue of abandoned projects. Apart from contravening the fiscal discipline, the inequality in the distribution of projects will lead to uneven development, a problem that weakens the polity by fuelling inequality, identity politics, patronage, and instability. It erodes trust in government and makes democracy fragile, as politics becomes a struggle over unequal access to resources rather than collective progress.

As the National Assembly’s Appropriation Committees subject the 2026 budget to rigorous scrutiny, they must identify and excise anomalous capital votes that represent fiscal leakages and rent-seeking behaviour. Public expenditure must reflect the principles of equity and allocative efficiency; any scenario where a privileged few divert projects to themselves, their families, or narrow constituencies constitutes a distortion of resource allocation, undermines inclusive growth, and erodes the foundations of democratic governance. Such a lopsided distribution of the nation’s commonwealth generates economic externalities—fuelling social discontent, triggering protests, and in extreme cases, escalating into violent conflict—while excluded groups experience fiscal marginalisation and political alienation. To safeguard macroeconomic stability and ensure optimal utilisation of scarce public resources, the National Assembly must exercise expenditure discipline by eliminating suspicious line items, thereby strengthening transparency, promoting distributive justice, and reinforcing public trust in the budgetary process.

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