For the umpteenth time, Nigeria has been thrown into a theatre of fiscal absurdity.
With barely six weeks to the end of the year, the Federal Government is yet to present the 2026 budget to the National Assembly.
What should have been a routine exercise in governance has become a tragicomedy: endless delays, hasty excuses, and a sense that planning is merely optional.
Budgets are not fancy stationery; they form the skeleton on which the nation’s development muscles hang.
Delay it, and everything wobbles: contractors scramble unpaid, civil servants freeze, and markets jitter nervously.
Yet, here we are again, holding on to the illusion that procrastination is a form of strategy.
To its credit, the Senate has insisted on the 2024 performance report, the 2025 capital projections, and a revised MTEF before considering the 2026 budget. Quite reasonable, one would think.
The Fiscal Responsibility Act actually demands it. But the executive, inspired by the art of suspense perhaps, has not obliged. In Abuja, timelines are suggestions, not law, it would appear.
Meanwhile, MTEF a document intended to anchor medium-term fiscal stability has become a casualty of neglect.
Outdated assumptions are its hallmark, oil price forecasts are at best delusional, and the targets of production read more like fiction rather than achievable goals.
And yet, the framework remains unsubmitted, leaving the ministries and agencies in some type of purgatory.
MDAs: Demoralized and Underfunded
At the heart of this chaos are the MDAs: demoralized and resource-strapped. Critical training programmes remain on hold; equipment procurement grinds to a halt. There are complaints from directors about dwindling motivation.
Budget Implementation Reports, once sacred quarterly rituals, have vanished for nearly two years, lowering transparency to levels that would make even the most secretive magician blush.
Meanwhile, the 2025 “Budget of Restoration” that was to resurrect the nation’s fiscal soul has remained in limbo. Contractors protested; plenary had to be abruptly suspended.
And with no money to warrant, the new rule requiring MDAs to secure warrants before spending is almost laughable. It is beginning to feel like governance has become performance art.
While the federal government dithers, states have moved ahead: Bayelsa, Cross River, Ekiti, and Osun have already presented appropriation bills to their legislatures.
Governors hold town halls, engage citizens, and get budgets moving. In other words, the states are doing what the federal government can’t or won’t.
The administration of President Bola Tinubu had promised the early submission of the 2026 budget.
In July, a circular was issued by the Budget Office directing MDAs to prepare personnel cost estimates. The said circular optimistically assumed that the MTEF for 2026–2028 would be completed on time. That optimism now reads like a cruel joke.
Rubber-Stamping: Expensive and Dangerous
Such a tendency, though apparently expedient, might be appealing to these officials.
But for the country, it is disastrous. Rubber-stamping, without due diligence, has left in its trail a litany of spurious assumptions, padded projects, unexecuted allocations, and abandoned infrastructure. Nigerians endure this costly habit year after year.
Public spending is the beating heart of the economy: delay it, and the body trembles, jobs are postponed, private sector activity stagnates, citizen confidence declines, and inflation, unemployment, and social hardship make the waiting game even crueler.
Uncertainty: Delivered on Schedule
It is high time the government shed its procrastination cloak. The revised MTEF must reach the Senate, and the 2026 budget must be presented, debated, and approved. Budget Implementation Reports must be revived. Anything less is not just incompetence; it is a betrayal of the people.
It is time Nigeria stopped building prosperity on promises, delays, or polite excuses. For now, uncertainty is the only thing delivered on schedule.