Former presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, has sharply criticised the Federal Government over what he described as “fiscal recklessness” in the handling of Nigeria’s national budgets, warning that the country is drifting into dangerous financial territory.
In a statement shared on his official X account on Monday, Obi questioned which budget Nigeria is currently operating, ahead of the Senate’s expected approval of the 2026 national budget on March 17. He noted that since 2023, the country has been implementing elements from different fiscal years at the same time, a situation he described as abnormal and damaging to credible public finance management.
According to Obi, President Bola Tinubu inherited a N21.83 trillion budget in 2023, which was later followed by a N2.17 trillion supplementary budget. He argued that the additional spending prioritised the welfare of public office holders at a time when Nigerians were grappling with severe economic hardship.
He said the pattern intensified in subsequent years, with the approval of N35.06 trillion for the 2024 budget and N54.99 trillion for 2025. Obi calculated that total appropriations under the current administration have exceeded N114 trillion in less than three years.
Despite the scale of spending, the former Anambra State governor expressed concern that budget implementation has consistently fallen below 50 per cent. He warned that the gap between approvals and execution has created what he described as a credibility crisis in Nigeria’s public finance system.
Obi also criticised the repeal and re-enactment of the 2024 and 2025 budgets with extended implementation timelines, noting that Nigerians were not given clear details of the revised figures or the capital projects affected.
He accused the Federal Government of retreating from transparency, alleging that treasury reports are no longer published on the OpenTreasury.gov.ng portal. Obi further claimed that no budget implementation report was released in 2025, regardless of performance.
“This lack of transparency is not accidental; it reflects a deliberate pattern of undermining public scrutiny and debate,” Obi said. “No nation can operate with such recklessness and succeed.”
