Senate Sets March 17 For Passage Of ₦58.472trn 2026 Budget

The Senate, through its Committee on Appropriations, has tentatively fixed March 17, 2026, for the final consideration and passage of the ₦58.472 trillion 2026 Appropriation Bill.

This was made known after a special session today, where February 2 to 13, 2026, was approved for the consideration of budget estimates at the committee level.

The committee equally fixed Monday, February 9, 2026, for a public hearing on the budget proposal.

Chairman of the committee, Senator Solomon Olamilekan Adeola, further disclosed that Thursday, March 5, 2026, has been scheduled for an interactive session between members of the committee and key economic managers of the Federal Government, including the Ministers of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, as well as the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Atiku Bagudu.

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According to him, February 16 to 23, 2026, has been earmarked for the submission of reports on budget defence by various standing committee chairmen, ahead of the presentation of the Appropriations Committee’s report to the Senate on March 17.

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He disclosed that while the Senate leadership initially preferred the budget to be passed by March 12, 2026, he successfully appealed for an additional week to allow for more thorough scrutiny.

To aid detailed examination of the estimates, Senator Adeola said hard copies of the 2026 budget have been printed and distributed to chairmen and members of the Senate’s standing committees.

Last month, President Bola Tinubu presented the 2026 budget proposal of ₦58.18 trillion to a joint session of the National Assembly.

Tinubu, who tagged the proposal a “Budget of Consolidation, Renewed Resilience and Shared Prosperity,”  pegged the capital expenditure at ₦26.08 trillion and put the crude oil benchmark at US$64.85 per barrel.

The expected total revenue is ₦34.33 trillion; ₦15.52 trillion for debt servicing.

He told the lawmakers that the proposed budget deficit is ₦23.85 trillion, representing 4.28% of GDP, anchoring the proposal on a crude oil production of 1.84 million barrels per day.

The exchange rate was fixed at ₦1,400 to the US Dollar for the 2026 fiscal year.

A further breakdown of the budget proposal showed that defence took the biggest share with ₦ 5.41 trillion, followed by infrastructure at ₦3.56 trillion. Education got ₦3.52 trillion, and health received ₦2.48 trillion.

“We will invest in security with clear accountability for outcomes—because security spending must deliver security results,” Tinubu, a former governor of Lagos, said.

“To secure our country, our priority will remain on increasing the fighting capability of our armed forces and other security agencies by boosting personnel and procuring cutting-edge platforms and other hardware.”