APM, DLA Criticise Fourth Extension of 2025 Capital Budget to December 2026
Two political groups have condemned the National Assembly's decision to push the implementation deadline for the 2025 capital budget to December 31, 2026, arguing that repeated rollovers damage fiscal discipline and budget performance.
The extension was approved on Tuesday, moving the deadline from September 30 to the end of 2026. This marks the fourth time the capital component of the 2025 budget has been extended. Legislators said the move was needed so that Ministries, Departments and Agencies could finish capital projects for which funds had already been appropriated and released.
Abubakar Yusuf, the National Publicity Secretary of the Allied Peoples Movement (APM), said the practice fosters budget padding and shows a distorted budget cycle under President Bola Tinubu's administration.
"What do you expect? Since the inception of the Tinubu administration in the last three and a half years, the annual budget of the country has been completely altered. This is far away from the fear envisaged by the previous administration that reverted budget performance from January to December," Yusuf said.
He maintained that overlapping budgets since 2023 have resulted in weak budget performance.
"Since the inception of this administration, Nigeria's budget has continued to overlap. This has led to non-performance from 2023 till now. The negative development has encouraged budget padding from the National Assembly to the Executive arm of government," he said.
Yusuf also raised concern about unpaid local contractors, saying some have been owed since 2024.
"Contractors are being owed for years since 2024 without payment. The 2024/2025 budget operated at 30 per cent," he said.
He further alleged that the 2026 budget had not started implementation by the last quarter of the year, and that capital expenditure had been neglected for three years.
"You won't believe, in the last quarter of 2026, the year's budget has not commenced implementation. What kind of country are we?" he asked.
"Capital budget has suffered for the past three years, while recurrent expenditure is partially implemented with only payment of salaries to some selected agencies. This is absurd."
According to him, the failure to meet contractual obligations is driving local contractors out of business in favour of proxies of government.
"We are in a country where local contractors are dying on a daily basis over lack of fulfilment of contractual obligations at the expense of selected foreign/local ones who are surrogates of the present administration or people in government," Yusuf said.
"They only release funds that are being recycled back to them as slush funds. Imagine that."
He called on the National Assembly and the Federal Government to stop the persistent overlap in budget implementation and ensure capital projects are funded on time.
In its own reaction, the Democratic and Leadership Alliance (DLA) said repeated extensions breed uncertainty for public investment and fiscal planning.
In a statement signed by its Head of Media and Publicity, Dr Tosin Odeyemi, the Alliance said drawn-out implementation affects the timing of government contracts, infrastructure spending and contractor payments, making it hard for businesses that rely on public projects to predict demand and cash flows.
"We are more concerned that this is the fourth time the implementation of this same budget has been extended," Odeyemi said.
He argued that continued extensions could lead to overlapping budget cycles and weaken fiscal accountability, with consequences for the 2026 fiscal framework, even though the approved 2026 budget sets aside N26.08 trillion for capital expenditure within total spending of N58.18 trillion.
Odeyemi also questioned how much funding was available for previous budgets and asked the Federal Government to account for revenues and expenditures.
The Alliance further pointed to President Tinubu's own 2026 budget speech, which acknowledged implementation pressures in 2025, noting that by the third quarter of 2025, only N3.10 trillion, about 17.7 per cent of the 2025 capital budget, had been released, partly because priority 2024 capital projects were being completed during the transition period.
The DLA demanded greater transparency over budget execution and public borrowing, and urged stronger fiscal discipline in managing national resources, while also criticising the administration's economic management.
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