There is a deafening silence in the land over the state of the
economy. No right-thinking person can take this silence or mood of
the nation for granted. This eery silence is invariably linked to a
cost-of-living crisis, exchange rate crisis, uncanny economic
uncertainties and other unfavourable economic variables hovering
over Nigeria like an ominous overcast and has turned the table
against the average Nigerian citizen. Today’s economic realities are
the byproduct of many decades of squandered opportunities and
mismanagement. We are at the point where we have no choice but
to get things right and bring about positive change in the renewed
hope agenda of the current administration. One tool to give people
hope and economic direction is the national budget, and the 2024
version of this essential national document is ripe to be laid before
the National Assembly (NASS) and for NASS to do justice to it
according to law and the current challenges facing the nation. This
‘budget of Renewed Hope” must depart from the norm if we are
earnest about getting things right in Nigeria. However, the systems
and structures that made our budgets ineffectual are still there
and may succeed in pushing this new budget towards the path that
destroys the essence and soul of the budget.
In ordinary times, the national budget should reflect our values,
priorities, pursuit of economic stability and broad growth anchors.
This is even more important in a crisis period. In the recent past,
this has not been our experience. National budgets have served
purposes other than the one it is meant for – starting from unrealistic
budget formulation, budget padding, duplication of projects,
allocation of projects to agencies outside its mandate, the deliberate
creation of multiple pipelines for corruption purposes, and
underspending to unsatisfactory budget implementation. But these
are no ordinary times. The budget must reflect the mood of the
nation. People are hurting from devastating economic hardship, and
the 2024 budget must be the first blueprint and anchor of hope for
millions of Nigerians looking for solutions to their many problems.
My ordinary expectation is that the Executive arm would put up a
budget that focuses on sectors of urgent national concern;social
welfare, education, health, transportation, power, agriculture, and
internal security. The budget will show the direction of this
government in the next year, and the president will expect NASS to
keep to the spirit and letter of the budget and not deviate from it to
help him champion his renewed hope agenda.
Analysing the Nigerian budget over the last decade provides insight
into the country’s economic trends, government priorities, and
overall fiscal management. A critical review of these budgets
highlights some of the negatives that have led us to our economic
quagmire, and we must keep such negatives from creeping into and
affecting the 2024 budget if we want it to be fit for purpose. The
Nigerian budget is often influenced by factors such as oil prices,
internal security challenges, infrastructure development, and social
welfare programmes. However, as dynamic as the Nigerian
circumstances are and the complexities that define our economic
realities, our bane comes more from structural decays and
ineptitude than from the content, spirit and intentions behind the
budget or the known trends that inevitably affect them. Some of
these known trends are outlined below.
First, Nigeria heavily relies on oil revenue, which has led to budget
volatility due to fluctuations in global oil prices. During high oil
prices, the budget tends to increase, leading to ambitious spending
plans. However, during oil price slumps, the government often faces
significant revenue shortfalls and struggles implementing planned
projects. Second, Nigeria ran a deficit budget for over a decade.
Nigeria’s debt profile has risen in the last decade as the
government has resorted to borrowing to bridge revenue shortfalls
and finance infrastructure projects. The increasing debt burden has
raised concerns about the country’s debt sustainability, particularly
in servicing these debts. Third, Nigerian budgets pander towards
recurrent expenditure rather than capital expenditure and
infrastructural development. Besides, these insufficient capital and
infrastructural projects have been fraught with challenges such as
corruption, inadequate project planning, and implementation delays
that have hindered the successful execution of these projects.
Fourth, most budgets during Buhari’s eight-year tenure have a
significant slant towards social welfare, focusing on poverty
alleviation, job creation, and social empowerment but the impact
and effectiveness of these initiatives have been a subject of debate
and scrutiny. Fifth, past budgets showed increased efforts to
diversify the Nigerian economy away from oil dependence, focusing
on sectors such as agriculture, manufacturing, and technology with
minimal result to show for it.
Overall, the Nigerian budget in the last decade reflects a mix of
challenges and opportunities, highlighting the need for improved
fiscal management, transparency, and sustainable economic
reforms to foster inclusive growth and development. However, the
most significant difficulty with our budgets is the corruption around
the budget both at the formulation and implementation stages.
ICPC alleged that civil servants padded 2021 and 2022 budgets
with projects duplication worth over N400billion. BudgIT, a non-
governmental civic organisation, also alleged that there were
insertions of 6,576 “strange”projects by federal lawmakers in the
2022 budget, which bloated the budgets of different federal
ministries, contributing further to a breach of the budget ceiling
safeguards announced by the Budget Office of the Federation on
August 19, 2021. On poor implementation of budget due to
inadequate budget formulation, data collated by BudgIT has shown
that only 13 out of the 36 states in Nigeria implemented 80 per cent
of their budgets for the 2022 fiscal year. And the federal
government has never attained 60% implementation in recent
times. Most of the underspending is on Capital expenditure.
Besides, for ten years, from 2012 to 2022, we have consistently
earned less revenue than we budgeted, meaning we always chose
the option of debt financing. The same applies to budget
performance, we have always spent less than budgeted. Unrealistic
budgeting has created credibility problem for Nigeria’s budget. This
is even worse by the over-bloated prices for projects that bring little
relief to the people.
Invariably, four constituencies have lofty expectations from this
2024 budget. The citizens of Nigeria, especially the majority going
through rough economic times, expect this budget to be a turning
point for them. To them, it is a budget of hope – a renewed hope for
a better future and a better Nigeria that Mr president promised them
during his campaign. However, the citizens must show a keen
interest in the budget-making process. Citizen participation in the
budget-making process leads to a responsive budget allocation by
the National Assembly, enhances good governance, and improves
the delivery of public services. The international community is
waiting for the budget to see whether we are serious about shifting
direction and doing things differently. They will have to judge
whether it is business as usual or whether Nigeria has taken a
stand to match rhetoric with actions in its bid to become an
economic giant. Students of history and economics are waiting to
see if this budget will be the start of a new epoch that will mark on
the sands of time indelibly that this set of leaders will transform
Nigeria forever. The last constituency is the National Assembly, and
it behoves them to perform their oversight functions properly during
the budget implementation phase and leave up to their mandate.
Over the past decade, there have been concerns about the actual
disbursement and effective utilisation of budgeted funds, leading to
challenges in achieving developmental goals and meeting the
population’s needs. Ensuring effective budget implementation and
accountability has been a persistent challenge in Nigeria.
Corruption, mismanagement of funds, and weak institutional
frameworks have hampered the efficient utilisation of budgetary
allocations, undermining the country’s development efforts. The
Nigerian Executive and NASS have a responsibility to get things
right with the new budget. If not, we are on a long road to perdition.
Nigerians have expectations of the Executive and NASS regarding
the 2024 budget formulation, ratification, implementation, and
accountability. We expect a workable and realistic budget. We
expect a cut down on the cost of governance. We expect less
deficit, reduced or elimination of waste, and reduced debt profile.
They must eschew all forms of budget padding, intentional
duplication of projects, and deliberate creation of multiple pipelines
for corruption purposes. The 2024 budget must lay the foundation
for the economic growth of Nigeria by at least starting the process
of diversifying the economy, addressing unemployment, and
tackling poverty. We expect patriotism to drive the budget
formulation process to the advantage of Nigeria and Nigerians and
not the benefit of a few. We are in an economic ocean; we must
either swim or sink. And swim we must!
