By Michael Olaogun
The Nigeria’s fiscal process has been throne into a state of confusion since the assumption of President Bola Tinubu as the President. The nation’s fiscal management has struggled with consistency leading to the overlapping budgets of 2024, 2025 and 2026 which was recently passed by the National Assembly. This act highlights a deeper, more troubling pattern, one that raises serious questions about planning, discipline and the government’s commitment to effective economic governance.
Across the world and in principle, a budget is meant to operate within a single fiscal year, providing a clear road-map for revenue generation and public spending. Since 2024, the reality has been far from this ideal. The 2024 budget cycle extended well into 2025, with capital projects and releases still ongoing even as the 2025 budget was being implemented. Now, as the 2026 budget comes into focus, the country finds itself juggling three fiscal frameworks at once, each competing for attention, funding, and execution capacity. Regrettably, the National Assembly under the leadership of Senator Godswill Akpabio and Hon, Tajudeen Abbas, that should serve as a primary upholder of budget approval and oversight is seen as an accomplice in the confusion playing out in our fiscal governance. The most pathetic concern has been that no logical justification has been given by both Executive and Legislature on what has become our reality, presenting Nigeria as a nation without direction.
The fiscal overlap is not just a technical irregularity; it is a reflection of systemic inefficiency and insincerity. Ministries, departments, and agencies are forced to divide their already limited resources across multiple budget cycles. Instead of focusing on completing projects within a defined time-frame, they operate in a fragmented environment where priorities shift constantly. The result is predictable: delayed infrastructure, inflated project costs, and in many cases, abandoned initiatives.
A major cause of this recurring overlap is the persistent delay in budget implementation, particularly on the capital expenditure side. While recurrent spending tends to proceed relatively smoothly, capital projects often suffer from late fund releases, procurement bottlenecks and weak oversight. Consequently, funds allocated in one year spill over into the next, creating a domino effect that disrupts subsequent budgets. Sadly, this is seen by fiscal watchers as a strategy for political gain by the ruling party.
The overlapping of the 2024, 2025, and 2026 budgets also undermines transparency and accountability. When multiple budgets are being executed simultaneously, it becomes increasingly difficult to track performance and measure outcomes. Which budget should be held responsible for a delayed project becomes the question. This ambiguity creates opportunities for corruption, mismanagement and reduces the effectiveness of legislative and public oversight.
Moreover, this situation sends the wrong signal to both citizens and investors. For citizens, it reinforces the perception of a government that struggles to translate plans into tangible results. For investors, it raises concerns about policy consistency and institutional reliability, key factors in making long-term investment decisions.
The consequences extend beyond inefficiency. Overlapping budgets weaken fiscal discipline by blurring expenditure limits and timelines. They complicate debt management, as borrowing tied to specific budget cycles becomes harder to track and justify. In a country already grappling with revenue constraints and rising debt obligations, this lack of clarity is particularly dangerous.
Addressing this issue requires urgent, deliberate and sincere action. The Federal government must ensure that budget implementation aligns strictly with the fiscal year. This means not only passing budgets on time but also releasing funds promptly and removing administrative bottlenecks that delay project execution. Similarly, there must be a stronger commitment to completing ongoing projects before introducing new ones. Rolling over unfinished projects year after year without clear timelines or accountability only perpetuates waste and inefficiency.
Oversight mechanisms both legislative and institutional must be strengthened to ensure that budget performance is closely monitored. Transparency tools, such as public dashboards and periodic implementation reports, can help restore confidence and improve accountability.
Ultimately, the overlapping budgets of 2024, 2025, and 2026 are a symptom of deeper governance challenges. They reveal a system that prioritizes planning on paper over execution in practice. If Nigeria is to achieve meaningful economic progress, it must move beyond this cycle of fiscal overlap and embrace a more disciplined, coordinated and transparent approach to budgeting. Until then, Nigeria risks a continuous down path where budgets exist more as aspirations than as instruments of real development for the good of the citizens.
Michael Olaogun, a policy-oriented researcher and democracy observer wrote from Abuja.