Minister of Budget and National Planning, Senator Abubakar Atiku Bagudu.
Minister of Budget and National Planning, Senator Abubakar Atiku Bagudu.
CISLAC, BudgIT urge NASS to end budget padding, flag 4,508projects worth N434.5b
Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, Senator Abubakar Bagudu, has challenged Nigerians, lawmakers and the media to rethink the country’s approach to budgeting, declaring that the national budget remains too small to deliver the level of development the country desires
This was as the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) raised fresh concerns over Nigeria’s budget process, citing an Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC) analysis, which flagged 4,508 projects worth about N434.5 billion as inserted or padded in the 2022 budget.
CISLAC, at the 2026 Senate Press Corps Workshop in Abuja, yesterday, called for tighter checks on budget proposals and legislative amendments before they become part of the Appropriation Act.
The paper was presented by Ebu Emmanuel on behalf of the Executive Director, CISLAC, Auwal Rafsanjani.
Similarly, the BudgIT Foundation urged the National Assembly to move away from budget insertion and adopt evidence-based scrutiny that links public spending to development plans, previous performance and citizens’ needs.
The call was made by the Country Director of BudgIT, Vahyala Kwaga, who represented the organisation’s Director, Olusegun Onigbinde, at the 2026 capacity-building workshop with the theme, ‘Leveraging Legislative Oversight and Media Collaboration to Safeguard the National Budget from Unlawful Insertions’.
Speaking at the workshop, the minister asserted that Nigeria “has the smallest national budget among the world’s 10 most populous countries,” warning that the country should not expect to achieve the same development outcomes as nations with significantly larger fiscal capacity.
He said the debate over the national budget should, therefore, go beyond allegations of unlawful insertions and focus on a more fundamental question of what Nigeria’s national budget should be, and what level of resources the country requires to achieve its development ambitions.
According to him, Nigeria faces a choice between simply budgeting according to what it can afford and developing the confidence, policies and public support required to mobilise more resources for economic transformation.
Bagudu said the second option would require Nigerians to understand the country’s fiscal limitations and support difficult decisions needed to expand government revenue, investment and borrowing capacity.
He said the Federal Government’s ambition of building a $1 trillion economy could not be separated from the size and structure of the national budget.
“The national budget should understandably be a product of that imagination,” Bagudu said, referring to the government’s development ambitions.
He argued that countries that successfully transformed their economies had made deliberate choices to move beyond their existing limitations.
On borrowing, he added: “If people do not support borrowing, the National Assembly will not allow borrowing.”
The minister consequently urged the media to take a more active role in explaining Nigeria’s fiscal position to citizens and interrogating how other countries had expanded their economies.
At the workshop, which focused on strengthening legislative oversight and media collaboration to protect the national budget from unlawful insertions, CISLAC said the ICPC analysis covered 6,690 projects valued at about N6.43 billion that were identified as duplicated across 66 government agencies.
However, CISLAC cautioned that the ICPC classifications should not be taken as proof of criminal conduct by individuals. It said the findings instead showed the need for stronger checks to prevent questionable projects and spending from entering the national budget.
According to the advocacy group, the issue is not the National Assembly’s constitutional power to consider and amend the budget. The concern, it said, is whether major changes are properly justified, transparent and traceable from the Executive proposal to the final Appropriation Act.
CISLAC called for every major budget item to have a clear public purpose, credible costing, project location, identified beneficiaries, a responsible ministry or agency and measurable expected results.
It also wants lawmakers to check whether proposed projects fall within the mandate of the ministry, department or agency expected to implement them.
Kwaga, who spoke on ‘From Insertion to Interrogation: The National Assembly’s Role in Evaluating the Executive’s Budget Proposal’, said the legislature’s responsibility should go beyond negotiating figures or adding projects to the Appropriation Bill.
He said lawmakers should test whether proposed spending is backed by credible plans and evidence of what the government achieved with previous allocations.
According to him, every budget line should be traceable to the National Development Plan (NDP), the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF), the Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP), sector strategies, and previous budget performance.
He charged lawmakers with asking fundamental questions about previous spending, including what was appropriated, what was released, what was delivered, and whether the outcome justified further funding.
BudgIT proposed six tests for every budget item: its alignment with national and sector plans, previous performance, potential duplication, costing, audit findings, and evidence of citizens’ needs.
The organisation also called for stronger year-round legislative oversight, with committees tracking project implementation, reviewing quarterly reports and using findings from audits and site visits to inform subsequent budget cycles.
Kwaga further advocated the use of technology to help lawmakers and their aides analyse thousands of budget lines, identify duplicate or vague projects, compare costs, and link proposed allocations with previous appropriations, releases and payments.
