THE Lead Director of the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), Eze Onyekpere, has raised concerns over what he described as significant procedural breaches in the Federal Government’s handling of the 2024 budget.
Speaking during an exclusive interview with The ICIR, Onyekpere said although President Bola Tinubu followed due process by presenting the 2024 Appropriation Bill to the National Assembly and securing legislative approval, the administration failed to comply with legal requirements during implementation.
According to him, once an appropriation bill is signed into law, the executive is required to implement it strictly within the fiscal year, from January 1 to December 31, unless a formal amendment or supplementary budget is presented to and approved by the National Assembly.
Onyekpere noted that despite implementation challenges in 2024, the executive did not return to lawmakers to seek adjustments to the budget.
Instead, he said the government sought an extension of the budget implementation into 2025, a move he described as inconsistent with standard budgetary practice.
“When 2024 passed, he begged that they should extend the implementation for up to 2025. They did that for him, although I hold that what they did was illegal.
“But let’s say what they did was legal. He took another 24 months and finished implementation in December 2025; something you should finish in December 2024. And all through that time, he did not come back to the National Assembly to say, I want to increase or to reduce,” he said.
He further alleged that after completing implementation beyond the original fiscal year, the executive returned to the National Assembly with a bill seeking to amend the 2024 Appropriation Act to reflect actual spending.
“When he finished implementing, he brought a bill to amend the 2024 Act to reflect the actual thing he had done, which is not in consonance with the approval of the National Assembly. He has spent more than the National Assembly approved for 2024. He was saying at the end of 2024, I did not finish implementing,” he added.
Onyekpere described this as retroactive budgeting, arguing that it undermined legislative oversight and violated principles of fiscal transparency.
Reacting to clarifications issued by the Budget Office of the Federation, the CSJ director said the explanations failed to address the core issue of legality, stressing that amendments to an appropriation law must precede spending, not follow it.
On budget execution, Onyekpere recalled that the Federal Government admitted implementing only about 30 per cent of the 2025 capital budget, prompting instructions for ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) to roll over unspent allocations into subsequent years.
He added that several MDAs have disputed the reported level of releases.
He also expressed concern over persistent delays in Nigeria’s budget cycle, noting that discussions on subsequent budgets dragged deep into the fiscal year, raising questions about effective implementation and oversight.
“So, you ask yourself, what was he doing all along? As we speak today being almost the last day in January, tomorrow will be the last day. The National Assembly is just about having the budget, talking about it for the first time. And knowing what they do, that budget will not be ready until March or April. Then when do you start implementation? And you know this is the year they are going for primaries,” he added.
Onyekpere added that weak adherence to budget laws by both the executive and legislature would erode accountability and limit public scrutiny of how national resources are managed.
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