Co-founder of BudgIT, Seun Onigbinde, has criticised the Federal Government’s budgeting process, expressing doubts over whether the President Bola Tinubu administration truly believes in the fiscal plans it presents to the National Assembly.
Naijaonpoint reports that Onigbinde spoke on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Thursday, where he argued that the government’s revenue constraints had continued to expose weaknesses in the implementation of its budgets.
According to him, one of the major problems with the current system is the apparent failure to treat budgets as strictly time-bound financial plans.
Onigbinde said the Federal Government already has significant obligations that place enormous pressure on available revenue.
He estimated that about ₦17 trillion would be required for debt servicing, while roughly ₦7 trillion would go to salaries.
He added that the government must also provide for pensions, statutory transfers, service-wide votes, consolidated expenditure and other recurrent obligations.
According to him, the minimum amount required to meet overhead and recurrent spending is more than ₦30tn.
He, however, argued that the government currently does not generate enough revenue to comfortably meet those commitments.
Onigbinde maintained that the gap between projected spending and actual revenue raised serious questions about the credibility of the budgeting process.
The BudgIT co-founder consequently called for greater transparency in the preparation and implementation of federal budgets.
He argued that the government must clearly explain how projected revenues would be realised and how expenditure commitments would be funded.
His comments come months after President Bola Tinubu signed the 2026 Appropriation Bill into law. The budget, assented to in April 2026, provides for an aggregate expenditure of ₦68.32 trillion.
