Bagudu: Nigeria Must Scale Budget Size, Mobilise Resources for $1trn Economy

• Says Brazil’s 2025 budget is at least 25 times the size of Nigeria’s budget

***• Attributes alleged illegal insertions ***to human errors during process

***• Insists National Assembly’s ***appropriation powers must be respected

• Akpabio, Adaramodu, others seek stronger media scrutiny of budget

Sunday Aborisade in Abuja

The Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, Senator Abubakar Bagudu, has called for a fundamental scaling up of the size of Nigeria’s national budget, arguing that the country cannot achieve its ambition of becoming a $1 trillion economy while operating one of the smallest budgets among the world’s most populous nations.

Speaking yesterday in Abuja at the 2026 Capacity-building Workshop of the Senate Press Corps, Bagudu said Nigeria must stop preparing budgets merely according to available resources and begin to consider what it would take to achieve its development aspirations.

The workshop, themed: “Leveraging Legislative Oversight and Media Collaboration to Safeguard the National Budget from Unlawful Insertions”, brought together lawmakers, budget experts, civil society advocates and journalists.

“Perhaps the starting point for this discussion should be: What should the national budget be? Because without starting from there, maybe we will not reach the right conclusion,” he said. He added: “I don’t have one definitive answer, but I would say that of the 10 most populous countries in the world, Nigeria has the smallest national budget.”

Bagudu tied the debate to President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda and Agenda 2050, the long-term framework developed through a whole-of-society approach.

“How can we, as a step towards that wider dream, generate a $1 trillion economy in the next four years? And not just a $1 trillion economy, but a $1 trillion economy that includes everyone,” he said.

Using the popular expression about cutting one’s coat according to one’s size, he warned against budgeting only on what the government can immediately afford.

“If I decide to cut my coat according to my size, then I should remain in the same shape. Maybe I will not even have the spare capacity to sew a cloth for another person,” he said.

He urged the media to help drive the conversation. “Should we continue with a budget that gives our populace one of the smallest budgets among comparable countries? Or should we imagine how we can mobilise more resources?” he asked.

Citing Brazil, another large federation, he said: “But Brazil’s 2025 budget is at least 25 times the size of Nigeria’s budget. So do I expect to achieve the same outcomes as Brazil? Is it that these needs do not exist in Nigeria? I believe they do.”

He said the National Assembly was an appropriate forum for the debate, because lawmakers confront their constituents’ needs daily. “I am sure the aggregate would approximate the kind of demand that exists in Brazil,” he said.

On borrowing, Bagudu said public understanding was critical. “What the law allows you to borrow is both limited and a function of public confidence. If people do not support borrowing, the National Assembly will not allow borrowing,” he said.

Defending the legislature’s role, he said criticism of its involvement in appropriation often stemmed from a misunderstanding of constitutional democracy.

“We chose constitutional democracy, and under constitutional democracy, the National Assembly has a critical role,” he said.

He urged greater understanding of constituency priorities that may look strange outside their local context, citing water projects in communities where residents still depend on animals and motorcycles to fetch water.

“So you see something in the budget, and because it is not a priority in your own area, you wonder why it is in the budget. But to that member of the House of Representatives or Senate who was elected from that community, it represents what their constituents consider a priority,” he said.

He recalled that in 2020, freezers in the budget raised questions until officials found they were meant for a fishing community. “The women there needed freezers because they did not have a way of preserving their fish,” he said.

On the controversy over alleged unlawful insertions, he said it was necessary to define clearly what constitutes one, rather than treating every amendment as an irregularity. He acknowledged, however, that errors can occur.

“We are dealing with processes, human beings and human errors. Therefore, vigilance is important. The media and legislative oversight should continue to be vigilant,” he said.

Bagudu also called for a balanced debate on transparency, saying legitimate strategic considerations can limit how much detail the government publishes.

“I may be fighting a war in the area of security, but how much of my security policy should I make public? Not because I am doing something wrong, but because there are legitimate strategic considerations,” he said.

He challenged the notion that recurrent spending is less valuable than capital spending. “If I am fighting a war and I don’t pay security personnel, what happens? So which one is more important?” he asked.

“Personnel cost performance is not simply a misnomer. It is a very important achievement in the delivery of security, services, human capital development and education,” he said.

Concluding, he said the conversation should focus on outcomes. “The conversation should be about what we are trying to achieve, what resources are required to achieve it, how we mobilise those resources, and how we maintain public confidence while ensuring accountability and transparency,” he said.

Akpabio, Others Seek Media Scrutiny of Budget

In his intervention, the Senate President, Senator Godswill Akpabio, and other stakeholders at the event, called for stronger collaboration between the National Assembly, media and civil society organisations to strengthen scrutiny of the national budget, curb unlawful insertions and ensure accountability in public expenditure.

Akpabio, represented by the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Senator Yemi Adaramodu, called for balanced reportage of the budget to enhance public confidence and trust.

He urged parliamentary journalists to familiarise themselves with legislative processes and procedures to ensure accurate reporting, while charging the media to continue acting as watchdogs by exposing waste and promoting the proper utilisation of public funds.

Adaramodu, who served as chief host, affirmed that the media had a responsibility to scrutinise the budget and its implementation.

He noted that budget provisions were designed around the needs of communities, warning journalists against reports capable of misleading the public.

The Chairman of the Senate Press Corps, Chief Taiye Odewale, said the alleged N1.3 billion allocation to the non-existent Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council had exposed the need for stronger checks against questionable budget entries.

Odewale said findings by the Senate Press Corps showed that the allocation was not part of the N9.853 trillion added by the National Assembly to the N58.47 trillion Executive proposal that produced the N68.32 trillion 2026 budget.

He said the controversy reinforced the need for closer collaboration between legislative oversight institutions and the media in detecting questionable entries, adding that the workshop was designed to equip journalists with better knowledge of budget scrutiny and artificial intelligence tools.

Representing the Executive Director of the Civil Society Legislative and Advocacy Centre, Auwal Rafsanjani, Ebu Emmanuel said budget provisions must be justified, transparent, properly costed and measurable.

He cited findings attributed to the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission that about 4,508 inserted or padded projects worth N434.5 billion and 66 duplicated projects valued at N6.43 billion were included in the 2022 budget.

Emmanuel urged lawmakers to verify the purpose, location, beneficiaries, cost and expected results of proposed projects before appropriation.

Representing BudgIT Director, Oluseun Onigbinde, its Country Director, Vahyala Kwaga, said legislative budget scrutiny often focused excessively on appropriations rather than public policy performance.

He identified late submission of the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper as a recurring challenge, recommending that the budget be presented to the National Assembly at least 90 days before the end of the financial year.

Also, Eagle Times Publisher, Ikechukwu Chukwunyere, represented by the newspaper’s Chief Operating Officer, Tabuko Kennedy, urged journalists to “follow the money” by comparing allocations, releases, expenditure, outputs and impact.

He proposed the establishment of a Senate Press Corps Budget Accountability Reporting Desk and tracking of major projects from budget documents to their implementation sites.

The Nigeria Representative of Mass Media LCC Texas Consultant, Adeola Ademokoya, said artificial intelligence could help journalists analyse lengthy budget documents, identify unusual figures and possible duplications, and generate questions for budget defence sessions.

She, however, stressed that AI remained an assistant rather than the final authority, urging journalists to verify information, seek responses and exercise editorial judgment before publication.