It was with a deep sigh of relief that many Nigerians welcomed the news that at last, the stage has been set for presentation to the National Assembly by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, of Budget 2025 estimates, with the former approving the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and the Financial Strategy Paper (FSP) for the 2025/2027 fiscal season. The relief is based on the termination of the disturbing delay in the coming of the 2025 budget as per the provisions of the country’s budget law – the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA) of 2007. Incidentally, the ‘breakthrough’ is coming so late in the day – which is several months behind schedule, as not only to render the entire 2025 budget dispensation by President Tinubu a much belated enterprise with significant implications. It also serves as another disturbing sign of the growing incidence of systemic incontinence in the workings of the federal government.

To accentuate the situation, it is also on record that recently the House of Representatives in its wisdom, raised concern over the likelihood of the 2025 budget coming late. However it would seem that the concern by the legislative body was unheeded by the executive arm. Put in context, at a time Nigerians needed to celebrate outgrowing the era of late budgets as was characteristic with past administrations, this is another dip in such expectations, and under an administration which offered so much hope to the country.

As at last count the delay over the arrival of budget 2025, seems to lie with the late submission to the National Assembly by the executive arm, of the MTEF and the FSP.  That the National Assembly is approving such critical instruments of fiscal planning at least three months late, tells of a deeper systemic challenge to governance in the country; especially with respect to the executive arm which is statutorily vested with the responsibility of sourcing ingredients for the MTEF and FSP.  But in a country like Nigeria where the citizenry is often laid back and remains complacent over whatever the ruling class throws up, it will not be surprising that not much reaction beyond a few media comments will interrogate the dispensation. Yet if seen in the proper context, it presents the country’s fiscal terrain as running on auto pilot, and that is a significant factor for stunting the country’s development aspirations.  

Statutorily, the sequence of activities in respect of the country’s budget process is provided for by the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA), which was enacted in 2007. According to the FRA, the relevant ministers   are required to make available to the government the MTEF and FSP not later than four months to the start of the succeeding year, which for the 2025 budget, should have been by July 2024 latest. This forward planning was intended to avail the country the opportunity for as many stake holders in the budget – government agencies, private business interests, designated communities, diplomatic missions and any other factor to interrogate and make inputs where necessary, in order to avail the country as good a budget package as possible. The dispensation also brings the entire machinery of government on to the same page, so that when the budget is finally presented to the National Assembly and by implication the general public, it will enjoy the latter’s buy in.

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Unfortunately, however, budget 2025 may have lost the benefit of a robust scrutiny by the wider cross section of Nigerians, and may be subjected to the reign of parochial evaluation by only a restricted field of officials. And that is the main challenge of time constraint facing budget 2025; that is if it will be enacted into law by December 31, 2024.

For the purpose of fairness, it is recalled that this column commended President Bola Tinubu for an early 2024 budget which came on time in 2023 being before the December 31 deadline. Against the backdrop of the 2024 budget experience the normal expectation was that the 2025 budget affair would be better. It is, therefore, against the backdrop of the enterprise that was deployed by all stakeholders in that dispensation – the ministers, legislators and the legislative bureaucracy of the National Assembly, that the current delay constitutes a far-cry from the commendable dispensation and remains disturbing, with the  situation offering itself for critical appraisal in order to obviate future re-occurrence.

Placed in proper perspective, if there is any administration that should see late budgets as unacceptable, it is the current Tinubu administration, given the expectation of renewed hope in the country, which  he raised in the citizenry and on the basis of which he was elected president. Having inherited an economy that was literally sliding down the vortex towards a meltdown, the citizenry looked forward to a turn-around in its socio-political fortunes. A measure of the concessions granted the administration by the people was the acceptance of the complement of painful economic policies and initiatives. Of note was the withdrawal of subsidy on pump price of a vital commodity as petrol, which even with the  nationwide protests, the wider cross section of the country remained tolerant of its harsh outcomes of general price hike with respect to basics of life – food items, public transportation and other areas of daily life.

 In the final analysis the delay in the coming of the budget 2025 offers a trove of lessons on the systemic weaknesses of the federal bureaucracy which the president needs to interrogate, for the purpose of retooling and repositioning his administration.