THE National Agricultural Land Development Authority (NALDA) has listed projects worth over N2.6 billion for execution across several states, including the construction of a mini stadium, religious centres, classrooms, health facilities, and the installation of an MRI machine in the 2026 proposed budget.

This has raised questions and concerns about compliance with its statutory mandate.

Established under the National Agricultural Land Development Authority Act (1992 No. 92) and revived in 2016, NALDA’s primary objectives include providing strategic public support for land development; promoting optimal utilisation of rural land resources for food and fibre production; supporting economic-size farm holdings and consolidating fragmented lands.

Others are encouraging mechanisation, sustainable agriculture, and national food security; instituting strategic land-use planning, including forest and grazing reserves; addressing population pressure, and providing technical and extension support to farmers.

The Act explicitly empowers NALDA to acquire, develop, parcel, and redistribute land for agricultural production, and to assist in on-farm training, market access, and technology provision.

The law does not expressly empower the agency to construct sports facilities, religious buildings, formal education infrastructure, or specialised medical diagnostic centres. Social infrastructure provision is permitted only if it supports emergent growth centres around agricultural project sites.

The ICIR reported that President Bola Tinubu presented N58.18 trillion 2026 budget proposal to the National Assembly on Friday, December 19.

In the proposal, defence and security will receive N5.41trillion, ahead of N3.56 trillion for infrastructure, N3.52 trillion for education, and N2.48trillion for health.

Projects listed outside core agricultural functions

Despite aforementioned statutory limitations, procurement documents show that NALDA plans to spend N420 million on the construction of a mini stadium in Kindiyo, Cham Balanga/Billiri Federal Constituency of Gombe State.

The agency also intends to allocate N350 million for the construction of churches, mosques, and other support for religious groups in selected farming communities in Gombe State, alongside N350 million for the construction of classroom blocks for farmers’ communities across the North-East and other parts of the country.

Other education-related projects to be executed by the agency in the financial year include renovation of two classroom blocks in Omala Local Government Area of Kogi State, projected to gulp N21 million, and the supply of school furniture in Jigawa South Senatorial District, for which N70 million was allocated.

Health and diagnostic projects raise questions on mandates

NALDA’s project list further includes N35 million for the construction of a Level 1 primary healthcare centre in Ugbawka community, Enugu East Senatorial District, as well as N175 million each for the construction and furnishing of primary healthcare centres in Gabukka and Mallam Inna areas of Gombe North Senatorial District.

The most capital-intensive item is N1.05 billion budgeted for the provision and installation of a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) machine at a medical diagnostics centre in Minna.

Although there are no laws in Nigeria that explicitly fault MDAs for carrying out projects against their mandate, former president, Muhammadu Buhari and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) had condemned the insertion of several constituency projects by federal lawmakers.

The ICIR, in its Open Contract Reporting project, reported many constituency projects poorly implemented or abandoned in local communities.

In 2023, a civic organisation BudgIT, pointed out how a total of N4.8 billion was allocated to projects that are outside the scope of their mandates.

The senior research & policy analyst for BudgIT, Vahyala Kwaga, at the time told The ICIR that most of the projects may not be executed because the wrong institutions were allocated the funds to carry them out.

“We need to understand that corruption is not a ‘technical’ matter but one that is fundamental to our governance and government.  Not only are monies almost never used for these projects, they are often diverted to other uses or not even released by the Accountant General’s office.

“This would even lead to poor budget performance because the releases intended by the budget were not even made (though they were ‘saved’) by not disbursing them to these so-called projects outside the mandate of MDAs,” he said.

Mustapha USMAN

Mustapha Usman is an investigative journalist with the International Centre for Investigative Reporting. You can easily reach him via: musman@icirnigeria.com. He tweets @UsmanMustapha_M