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• Approves implementation of N1bn ZIP for Senators, N500m for Reps
From Adesuwa Tsan and Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
Ahead of the 2027 general election, President Bola Tinubu has taken steps to appease members of the National Assembly, who are aggrieved over the non-implementation of their Zonal Intervention Projects ( ZIPs), otherwise called Constituency Projects, for the 2024 and 2025 fiscal years.
The claims came amid repeated complaints by federal ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs), as well as lawmakers, over the slow release of funds for capital projects contained in the national budgets.
According to the senior legislative source, who spoke with Daily Sun, following outrage by lawmakers over the non-payment of contractors due to the non-release of funds for the 2025 budget, which was rolled over to September, the Presidency recently asked members of the National Assembly to identify their own constituency projects for funding.
The claims appear to align with a July 2026 communication from the House Committee on Appropriations, which informed members that, following engagements with relevant authorities by the House leadership and the committee, approval had been secured for the phased clearance of verified outstanding obligations relating to constituency projects captured under the 2024, 2025 and 2025 Supplementary Appropriation Acts.
The notice directed members to nominate payment certificates with a combined value of N500 million for an initial clearance phase, with subsequent batches of N500 million to be processed monthly until all verified obligations are settled.
This is despite widespread complaints that implementation of the broader 2025 budget has remained poor.
“They are complaining that the 2025 budget is not being funded, but they have asked lawmakers to select their own projects for payment,” the source alleged.
According to the source, members of the House of Representatives were asked to nominate projects worth about N500 million each, while senators were reportedly allocated projects valued at N1 billion each for fund releases over three months beginning from July.
“N1 billion for the Senators. The Presidency asked them to submit their own for N1 billion,” the source alleged.
He also alleged that the approach was designed to ensure payments for projects directly nominated by lawmakers rather than projects considered to have wider national impact.
The allegations extend to claims that politically attractive constituency projects are being prioritised over investments in sectors such as healthcare and other nationwide infrastructure as the general elections draw closer.
“Things like hospitals are not their business. It is just the projects that concern them,” the source alleged
He further disclosed that there is widespread abuse of the appropriation process, citing as examples constituency projects for religious institutions and youth empowerment programmes allegedly linked to Deputy Speaker Benjamin Kalu.
Daily Sun recalls that lawmakers have, on different occasions, raised the alarm over poor funding of the national budget. Chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, Senator Solomon Olamilekan Adeola, had, during budget defence sessions warned that passing budgets without adequate implementation undermines the essence of the appropriation process.
Similarly, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance, Sani Musa, recently lamented that many government agencies were failing to generate and remit expected revenues needed to finance the budget.
Also, Senate Chief Whip Mohammed Monguno expressed concern over inadequate funding of approved budgets, warning that failure to faithfully implement an Appropriation Act could amount to a constitutional breach and, in extreme circumstances, constitute grounds for impeachment of the President.
Officials of the Budget Office and the Ministry of Finance have also repeatedly attributed funding constraints to lower-than-expected revenues, debt servicing obligations and cash flow challenges.
The Federal Government has consistently maintained that budget releases are tied to available revenues and that capital projects are funded based on cash availability and implementation priorities.
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As of the time of filing this report, efforts to obtain official reactions from the Presidency and the spokesman of the Senate remained unsuccessful.
Daily Sun gathered that the Federal Government has approved the implementation of Constituency Projects worth N1 billion for each Senator and N500,000 million for each member of the House of Representatives in the first tranche.
A memo to members of the House of Representatives, sighted by Daily Sun, indicated that an initial tranche of N500 million for projects in the 2024 and 2025 budgets, as well as the 2025 Supplementary budget, would be implemented in the first phase.
The memo added that N500 million worth of projects would subsequently be implemented monthly until all the outstanding obligations are cleared.
The memo read in part: “Initial Clearance Tranche – In the first instance, nominated payment certificates with a combined value of N500 million will be processed for the first phase of clearance.
“Subsequent phases – Additional batches of projects with a combined value of N500 million each will be processed monthly until all verified outstanding obligations are fully addressed.
“Members are requested to submit details of their nominated projects in the prescribed format to facilitate verification and processing.”
Multiple sources in the House confirmed to Daily Sun that members have already submitted their preferred projects with expectations that implementation would start before the end of July.
Members of the House have been restive over the delay in the implementation of their ZIPs in the 2024 and 2025 budget, as well as the 2025 Supplementary budget.
On July 8, lawmakers clashed over a motion seeking to summon President Tinubu to appear before the parliament to explain the abysmal implementation of the Appropriation Acts.
The member representing Aba North and Aba South Federal Constituency of Abia State, Alex Ikwechegh, had, in a motion, titled, “Urgent need to address the poor funding of appropriated budget and delayed releases as revealed during the 2026 budget defence sessions,” proposed that President Tinubu be summoned to appear before the House over the poor implementation of national budgets since 2024.
Eventually, the House resolved that relevant ministers in charge of the economy should be invited to brief lawmakers, as the Speaker, Abbas Tajudeen, explained that the proposal to summon the President was not in the original prayers of the motion.
The Green chamber also resolved to set up a 12-man Ad-hoc Committee, chaired by the chairman, House Committee on Appropriation, Abubakar Bichi, to interface with the relevant fiscal authorities on the state of releases, the settlement of contractor liabilities and the utilisation of approved borrowings.
A highly placed source told Daily Sun that the decision for a phased implementation of the ZIPs was a fallout of the July 8 move as the House leadership is still apprehensive on what will be the next step the aggrieved lawmakers.
According to him, “Lawmakers didn’t want that Open Week, but the leadership just played them, went ahead with the Open Week. So, part of that negotiation was this thing. And they just ask them to go and just to distract them from the whole thing.
“Because they have been complaining about the inability of the government to fund the projects in their constituencies. You know, some of them don’t even have anything to show. If your constituents have seen that there is a budget of a project for N1 billion for their constituency and they didn’t see anyone at all, they won’t take it lightly. The story out there was that they have gone to collect the money and you know that this is election year, so they were all under pressure to see that one or two things are done in their constituencies
“That was why they wanted to invite the president. The leadership was afraid because they didn’t know how the thing would end. They just negotiated on their behalf that let the governments be funding at least N500 million of the outstanding projects per month.”
All efforts to speak with the House Spokesman, Akin Rotimi, was unsuccessful as he neither responded to repeated calls nor replied to WhatsApp messages at the time of filing this report. His Deputy, Philip Agbese also did not respond to calls.
