By:ThinkBusiness Africa
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has formally requested the National Assembly to repeal and re-enact the 2024 and 2025 Appropriation Acts. The proposal, transmitted via a letter read during plenary on Friday, seeks to synchronize the country’s chaotic budget cycles and extend the 2025 fiscal year until March 31, 2026.
The President’s legislative request aims to end the “unhealthy practice” of running multiple budgets concurrently—a situation that has seen the 2023 supplementary, 2024, and 2025 budgets all operational at the same time.
Finance minister, Wale Edun, said earlier this week that the 3 different concurrent budgets were being financed with revenue generated in 2025. This situation he explained was creating revenue constraints for the present fiscal year.
In the letter, Tinubu is proposing a total “reset” of the federal expenditure framework. Rather than simple amendments, the existing laws will be scrapped and replaced with figures that the Presidency says reflect “current fiscal realities and execution capacity.”
The President seeks a significant upward revision for the 2024 budget from its original N35.06 trillion to N43.56 trillion, with implementation period ending on 31 December 2025.
- Recurrent (Non-Debt) Expenditure: N11.27 trillion
- Capital Expenditure: N22.28 trillion
- Debt Service: N8.27 trillion
- Statutory Transfers: N1.74 trillion
In a surprising turn, the 2025 Budget—originally signed at N54.99 trillion—is being revised downward to N48.32 trillion. Crucially, its implementation period will now run through March 2026.
- New Total: N48.32 trillion
- Debt Service (Projected): N14.32 trillion
If passed, this will mark the most significant change to Nigeria’s financial calendar since the return to the January-December cycle in 2020.
President Tinubu explained that the reform is necessary to accommodate “unprecedentedly high” capital performance and ensure that at least 30% of capital allocations are released to Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs).
“This is part of a broader fiscal reform measure aimed at eliminating the overlap of multiple concurrently running budgets, thereby strengthening planning, execution, and accountability across government expenditure cycles,”” the President stated in his letter.
Last week, the federal government directed MDAs to carry over 70% of their approved 2025 capital allocations to 2026. MDAs were instructed that their 2026 budget proposals must largely be composed of funds already allocated in 2025, with no new capital projects allowed.
The repeal-and-replace strategy clears the runway for the 2026 Appropriation Bill, which the President is scheduled to present to a joint session of the National Assembly.
