After a careful review of the 2026 Budget Proposal presented to the National Assembly by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on Friday, December 19, 2025, the ADC Team of Economists reaches the following conclusions:
Although packaged as a “Budget of Consolidation, Renewed Resilience and Shared Prosperity,” the proposal before the National Assembly represents nothing more than a consolidation of fiscal recklessness and a renewal of the wishful thinking that has become the hallmark of the Tinubu administration. If approved in its present form, the only thing this budget will share is deeper debt and greater misery for Nigerians in the years ahead.
The 2026 budget simply replicates the failed templates of the unimplemented—and arguably unimplementable—2024 and 2025 budgets. Like its predecessors, it is likely to suffer delayed execution, with the bulk of implementation deferred into another fiscal year.
Nigeria is now witnessing an administration attempting to build a house on quicksand. This new fiscal framework is being introduced at a time when the 2025 budget has only just been repealed and reenacted, in what can only be described as an unprecedented display of fiscal chaos and administrative incompetence.
There is no doubt that Nigeria is trapped in a severe fiscal crisis. However, instead of confronting this reality with courage and discipline, the Tinubu administration continues to kick the can down the road—papering over widening cracks with mountains of unsustainable debt that mortgage the future of coming generations, while indulging in financial profligacy today.
This government appears unable—or unwilling—to grasp a basic economic truth: no amount of monetary tinkering or central bank intervention can rescue an economy where fiscal discipline and budget credibility are absent. What Nigerians are witnessing is a chaotic attempt to operate more than four budgets simultaneously, a direct consequence of an administration that lacks the competence to conclude previous budget cycles or adhere to its own fiscal timelines.
While governments may extend implementation periods or introduce supplementary budgets, operating three or more national budgets concurrently is President Tinubu’s unprecedented contribution to fiscal disorder. This has never happened in Nigeria’s history.
Even more troubling is the administration’s habit of reducing fiscal planning to a hollow ritual and political ceremony that mocks the lived suffering of Nigerians. Revenue was projected at N20 trillion in 2024—driven largely by the inflationary effects of currency devaluation rather than genuine economic productivity. Yet the government doubled this figure to N40 trillion in 2025 and has now raised it further to N58.57 trillion for 2026. This is not vision; it is fantasy.
The 2026 budget, disturbingly thin on detail, proposes another unsustainable expansion built on shaky assumptions. At a time when oil output remains fragile and global prices are softening as geopolitical tensions ease, the government has inexplicably adopted an oil benchmark of $64 per barrel. Instead of prudence, it pursues a N34 trillion revenue target completely disconnected from economic realities—especially now that the artificial revenue boost from naira devaluation has dissipated. One is left to wonder whether this administration considers any scenario other than those that validate its preconceived narrative.
Perhaps the most alarming aspect of the proposal is the sheer scale of its deficit and the callous disregard it shows for future generations. A budget that plans to generate N34 trillion in revenue while borrowing N24 trillion is nothing short of an admission of fiscal insolvency. In any sane and functional fiscal system, a deficit-to-revenue ratio approaching 70 percent would be unthinkable.
The document laid before the National Assembly on December 19 is a debt trap masquerading as a national budget. While the government claims it will spend N25.68 trillion on capital expenditure, a projected deficit of N23.85 trillion means that nearly every road, bridge, and public project will be financed with high-interest borrowing. Even under transparent conditions, this would be deeply concerning. It becomes outright dangerous when borrowing is used to fund opaque, inefficient, and often frivolous expenditures. It is reckless to squander current revenues; it is unforgivable to burden unborn generations with massive debts incurred for wasteful spending.
The fundamentals of the 2026 budget reveal a complete collapse of revenue credibility and deficit management. The consequences are already evident. Driven by currency devaluation and aggressive borrowing, debt servicing costs have ballooned from N12.63 trillion in 2024 to a projected N15.52 trillion in 2026. There exists no credible fiscal doctrine that justifies persistently high deficits alongside such astronomical debt servicing obligations.
This administration has reached a dead end, blinded by its own propaganda. Nigeria urgently requires a new fiscal vision—one grounded in discipline, transparency, and realism. The country needs a radical departure from this path of ruin to rebuild a fiscal framework that serves the Nigerian people, not just creditors and rent-seekers.
SIGNED:
Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi
National Publicity Secretary
African Democratic Congress (ADC).
