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From Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has dismissed the 2026 Appropriation Bill presented to the National Assembly by President Bola Tinubu, last Friday, as a consolidation of the fiscal recklessness and renewed wishful thinking of the present administration.
The ADC, in a statement by its interim National Publicity Secretary, Bolaji Abdullahi, said the Appropriation Bill christened, “Budget of Consolidation, Renewed Resilience and Shared Prosperity” is only capable of sharing more debts and misery in the coming years.
The party accused the Federal Government of attempting to build a house on quicksand by presenting a new budget at a time the 2025 budget had just been repealed and reenacted. It stated that the government’s action is allegedly a display of unprecedented fiscal chaos and administrative incompetence.
President Tinubu, while addressing a joint session of the National Assembly, had unveiled a budget of ₦58.18 trillion for the 2026 fiscal year. The budget proposal consists of ₦15.52 trillion for debt servicing; recurrent (non‑debt) expenditure, ₦15.25 trillion and capital expenditure, ₦26.08 trillion.
According to the President, ₦34.33 trillion is expected as total revenue, with a budget deficit of ₦23.85 trillion, representing 4.28 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Nonetheless, the ADC said the 2026 budget proposal allegedly “copies the templates of the failed, unimplemented and perhaps, un-implementable 2024 and 2025 budgets and will most likely end up in the same way, with the bulk of its implementation pushed to another year.”
The 2026 budget, which remains dangerously scant on detail, embarks on yet another unsustainable expansion built on a foundation of quicksand. In an era where oil projections are weakening and global prices are dipping as tensions in Europe show signs of cooling, the Federal Government has inexplicably set a benchmark of $64 per barrel.
“Instead of adopting a conservative posture to shield the nation from global volatility, they chase a N34 trillion revenue target that is totally disconnected from reality, especially now that the artificial “bounce” provided by the devaluation of the Naira has fully evaporated. We wonder if this government ever considers alternative scenarios, other than the one that favours their mindset.
Perhaps, most terrifying is the sheer scale of the deficit and what it reveals about this government’s lack of concern for the next generation. This administration behaves as if after them, there would be no Nigeria anymore.
“A budget that plans to generate N34 trillion in revenue while borrowing N24 trillion is an admission of fiscal insolvency. In no sane or functional fiscal system would a deficit-to-revenue ratio of 70 percent be considered acceptable or even be contemplated at all.
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“The document presented before the National Assembly on December 19 is a debt trap masquerading as a budget. The government claims it will spend N25.68 trillion on capital expenditure, yet with a projected deficit of N23.85 trillion, it is clear that almost every single bridge, road or project is being funded by high-interest debts.
“Even with a transparent capital plan in place, this on its own calls for concern. But, it is even more alarming when the government borrows mindlessly to fund opaque and often frivolous expenditures. It is one thing to squander current revenues on the excesses of the state, but it is an unpardonable sin to raise massive debts to fund reckless spending, effectively burying our children under a mountain of debt obligations before they even enter the workforce.
“The fundamentals of this 2026 budget document betray a total abandonment of revenue credibility and deficit management. The consequences of this incompetence are already staring us in the face.
“Driven by the twin engines of devaluation and surging borrowing, Nigeria’s debt servicing costs have exploded from N12.63 trillion in 2024 to a projected and staggering N15.52 trillion in 2026. There is no fiscal doctrine on earth that justifies a path of high deficits paired with such astronomical servicing costs.
“This administration has hit a wall and it is clear that they are blinded by their own propaganda. The Federal Government of Nigeria is in desperate need of a new pair of eyes and a radical departure from this path of ruin to rebuild a fiscal structure that serves the people rather than just the creditors.”
Furthermore, the opposition party noted that the “Truth is Nigeria is caught in a fiscal mess. But rather than confront the problems, the Tinubu administration has continued to kick the can down the streets, believing that they can continue to hide the yawning cracks under mountains of unsustainable debts that mortgage the future generation, while they continue to indulge in financial profligacy.
“This administration fails to grasp a fundamental economic truth: no amount of monetary tinkering or central bank intervention can rescue an economy if the government refuses to embrace fiscal discipline and budget credibility.
“What we have seen under this Tinubu APC administration is a chaotic attempt to implement more than four budgets simultaneously because it lacks the basic competence to close out previous cycles and adhere to its own timelines.
“Governments may extend budget implementation periods or manage multiple supplementary budgets, but operating three or more national budgets simultaneously, is President Tinubu’s original contribution to fiscal chaos. It has never happened before in this country.”
It added that it is evident that the Tinubu administration has a penchant for allegedly turning “fiscal planning into a hollow ritual and political ceremonies that mock the suffering of the Nigerian people. “
According to the ADC, “While revenues were pushed to N20 trillion in 2024, a figure driven more by the pains of currency devaluation than by genuine economic productivity, the government had the audacity to double its projections to N40 trillion for 2025 and even raising it to N58.57 trillion in 2026. This is not a vision; it is fantasy.”
