By Ugo Inyama
Nigeria knows how to budget. We know how to announce trillions, make grand speeches and celebrate appropriation figures as though development has already happened. Every year, the numbers grow larger and the promises become bolder.
But Nigerians cannot drive on budget speeches. They cannot receive treatment in appropriation bills. Factories cannot run on promises. Farmers cannot transport produce on fiscal projections. A budget may look impressive in Abuja, but unless it translates into roads, hospitals, schools, electricity, water and economic opportunities, it remains numbers on paper.
The real test of any budget is implementation. On that score, Nigeria has serious questions to answer.
We are already in August. More than half of 2026 is gone. Yet the impact of the 2026 capital budget remains painfully difficult to see. Where are the projects? Where are the releases? Where is the implementation? Where are the results?
These are not opposition questions. They are Nigerian questions.
President Bola Tinubu signed the 2026 budget into law in April. Total expenditure stands at ₦68.32 trillion, with about ₦32.2 trillion allocated to capital expenditure. That is a mountain of money on paper. But paper does not build roads.
The warning signs were already there. In presenting the 2026 budget, the President acknowledged that by the third quarter of 2025, only about ₦3.10 trillion, roughly 17.7 per cent of the 2025 capital budget, had been released.
That should have caused national alarm. Instead, we moved on to another budget.
We were implementing 2024 projects in 2025. Then 2025 projects spilled into 2026. Now 2026 itself is racing towards its final months. Nigeria’s capital budget is beginning to resemble a family suitcase that nobody completely unpacks. We simply carry it into the next year and add more clothes.
That is not effective budgeting. It is postponement dressed in fiscal grammar.
Nigeria has developed an unhealthy obsession with the size of its budgets. Ministers celebrate allocations. Legislators announce projects secured for their constituencies. Government officials proudly tell Nigerians how many billions have been provided for roads, hospitals, agriculture, education and power.
But allocation is not achievement. Appropriation is not implementation. Announcement is not development.
If ₦100 billion is budgeted for roads but only ₦20 billion reaches the projects, Nigerians are not driving on ₦100 billion worth of roads. The pothole does not care what the National Assembly approved.
Government must stop measuring success by what it intends to spend and start telling Nigerians what it has actually delivered. How much has been released? How much has been spent? Which projects have started? Which have been completed? What percentage of the capital budget has actually been implemented?
Every ministry, department and agency should publish a simple monthly capital implementation dashboard showing what was budgeted, what was released, what was spent and what was delivered.
If a ministry received nothing, say so. If money was released but not spent, explain why. If procurement is delaying a project, identify the problem. If a contractor collected mobilisation and disappeared, name the contractor. Accountability should not require detective work.
There is another uncomfortable problem. Nigeria appears addicted to starting new projects.
Every political officeholder wants something new to commission. Another road. Another hospital. Another secretariat. Another skills centre. Another foundation stone accompanied by speeches, photographs and applause.
Meanwhile, existing projects remain unfinished. Some have survived more budget cycles than the politicians who initiated them.
Nigeria needs a simple rule: finish what you started.
An unfinished hospital treats nobody. An abandoned road carries nobody. An unequipped school teaches nobody. An incomplete irrigation project feeds nobody. There is no economic medal for accumulating abandoned projects.
If government cannot finance 10,000 projects, budget for 3,000 and complete them. A smaller realistic budget properly implemented will always serve Nigerians better than a gigantic budget that exists mainly in government documents.
Government undoubtedly faces fiscal pressures. Debt servicing is expensive. Salaries must be paid. Revenue projections sometimes fail. But that is precisely why budgeting must become more realistic. Capital expenditure cannot continually become the sacrificial lamb whenever revenue disappoints.
Roads reduce transportation costs. Reliable electricity supports industry. Hospitals protect lives. Schools develop human capital. Irrigation strengthens food security. When capital implementation suffers, tomorrow’s economy pays the price.
The National Assembly must also accept responsibility. Lawmakers cannot approve enormous budgets, add thousands of projects and then disappear from the implementation conversation. Legislative oversight should not end when the President signs the Appropriation Act. Oversight must move from allocation to outcomes.
And the clock is ticking.
January to July 2026 is gone. We are in August.
Soon, attention will turn towards another budget, another speech, another impressive figure and another promise of transformation.
Not so fast.
Before anyone brings out the calculator for 2027, Nigerians deserve a proper account of 2026. How much of the capital budget has been released? How much has been spent? Which roads have been completed? Which hospitals have been equipped? Which power projects are delivering electricity?
A budget does not become development because the President signed it or because the National Assembly passed it. It becomes development when Nigerians can see it, use it and benefit from it.
No excuses. No fiscal poetry. Just show Nigerians the projects.
A budget is a promise. Implementation is the proof.
More than half of 2026 is already gone.
Where is the proof?
*Ugo Inyama
Executive Director
African Digital Governance Centre, Manchester
Email: ugo@africandgc.org