The African Democratic Congress has slammed President Bola Tinubu over the implementation of national budgets, describing his administration as the most incompetent in Nigeria’s history.
In a statement on Thursday, the party’s national publicity secretary, Bolaji Abdullahi, cited reports that 30 per cent of the 2025 budget will run from February 2026 to November 30, 2026, while the remaining 70 per cent of the budget had been rolled over to the 2026 budget, which is still being debated at the National Assembly three months into the year.
“The ADC has noted recent reports that signify utter confusion and a historic level of incompetence in the Tinubu administration’s implementation of national budgets since 2024,” said Mr Abdullahi. “This is the first time in Nigerian history that any government would be running three budgets at the same time while implementing none.”
He noted that, according to reports, while the 2024 budget was rolled over to 2025, as of the third quarter of 2025, only 17.7 per cent of the capital budget had been released.
“Overall implementation hovered at less than 30 per cent, even as internal disbursements continued to lag.
“This situation becomes even more alarming when we recall that President Tinubu promised last year that all capital components of the 2024 and 2025 budgets would be concluded by March 31, 2026, less than a month away, knowing quite well that this is not possible,” he said.
He said that as of March 5, capital budget implementation for the Ministry of Power stands at 3.6 per cent; communications technology at 8.9 per cent; and education and health at 23.5 per cent and 32.5 per cent, respectively.
According to him, no serious government would leave the sectors, which are crucial to national human capital development, unfunded while government officials continue to live in obscene opulence in the midst of unprecedented poverty.
“It is noteworthy that the only ministry that has outperformed its budget, up to 113.45 per cent, is the Ministry of Defence, largely due to emergency funding through the inscrutable Service-Wide Vote,” Mr Abdullahi said.
“Yet, rather than abate, insecurity has continued to spread across the country. Recent reports indicate that in this month of Ramadan alone, up to 500 Nigerians may have been killed by terrorists in Borno, Yobe, Adamawa, and Kebbi.”
He said Mr Tinubu’s government has continued to boast of historic revenue collection and unprecedented foreign reserve balances despite borrowing more aggressively than any other government in the country’s history.
“Yet, budgets remain unimplemented, and contractors remain unpaid. This is the reason Nigerians are suffering like never before and asking the most important questions: What is this government doing with all the money that accrues from all the loans, all the revenues, and all the increased taxes? Why are we worse off today than we were three years ago?” Mr Abdullahi queried.
Mr Abdullahi lamented that since Mr Tinubu assumed office, analysts have identified at least seven appointments and several policy decisions that his government has announced and reversed.
He further accused the government of gloating over the ruling party’s victory in the Federal Capital Territory polls and being obsessed with the ADC’s membership registration.
Mr Abdullahi added that despite the current administration’s claim of “performing wonders,” Nigerians still live in poverty, adding, “at least six out of every ten Nigerians are unable to feed themselves.”
