It is time to talk about Big Money!
President Tinubu signed the 2026 Appropriation Act of a massive N68.32 trillion on April 17.
Remember: Between presidential submission and National Assembly passage, the budget value jumped by a whopping 9 per cent, from N58.18 trillion. There was no public scrutiny as to what was added, by whom, or why.
This we do know: Tinubu allocated over N1.01 trillion to INEC for the 2027 election. He also provided the astonishing sum of N135bn not to enhance the quality of the elections, but for election lawsuits: the way you budget well ahead for disease and surgery rather than for healthy habits.
The Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre cried “Bigger Figures, Familiar Failures.” The IMF cited budget execution gaps.
The government continued to keep the detailed budget under wraps, leading to the Centre for Social Justice demanding that the Director-General of the Budget Office, Tanimu Yakubu, either publish the document immediately or resign.
The government had chosen to break Nigeria’s fiscal law rather than publish budget reports in three consecutive quarters, the Foundation for Investigative Journalism affirmed.
Despite all of that and much more, the budget had not been published as of the end of last week.
Big Money: In January, SERAP sued INEC for failing to account for “the missing or diverted N55.9 billion” concerning the 2019 general elections, following the 2022 Auditor-General’s report issued last September.
INEC issues in that report include:
- Award of Contracts Without Due Process (over N41.3bn)
- Irregular Payment for Smart Card Readers (over N5.31bn)
- Procurement with Contradictory Supporting Documents (over N331m)
- Payments without a voucher or evidence of supply (N3.485)
- Payments without deducting the mandatory 1% stamp duty (over N2.19 billion)
- Irregular Award of Contract for four Toyota Land Cruisers (over N297m)
This is fascinating given that months after the Auditor-General’s report emerged, INEC bragged about savings of N1.1 trillion from “procurement reforms.”
Reflect, for a moment, on that report alongside INEC’s procurement sainthood, in the same sentence.
Big Money: Former Power minister Saleh Mamman, found guilty of 12 counts, including using private firms to funnel money linked to government-funded power plants, has been sentenced to 75 years in prison for laundering N33.8bn.
Knowing how unusual this is in Nigeria, I would have said, “Greed, served!” But Mamman is missing (wink-wink).
He was not in court to be sentenced: another reminder that when you are a Big Man with Big Money, you can determine your own justice.
This is why tenure-limited governors sprint to Abuja from their states as soon as someone else takes their job, heading for the best hiding place in the land: the Senate!
We cannot celebrate “Greed, served!” when over 60 per cent of corruption cases against public officials partying in public remain unresolved after over a decade, with credible data shamelessly showing that only 144 of 393 cases reached final judgment between 2013 and 2026.
Which reminds me: the March 2026 OECD Anti-Corruption and Integrity Outlook 2026 found a 26-percentage-point gap between integrity regulation and implementation. This is particularly interesting because, in Nigeria, integrity is perhaps the most loathed term in the corridors of power. We don’t say it and don’t spell it.
More big money issues last week emerged in a bombshell report concerning the misappropriation of over N800 billion allegedly diverted from federal allocations by APC governors to fund President Tinubu’s re-election campaign.
If true, those would be state funds being illegally emptied into the president’s personal pockets. The government swiftly denied the allegations.
As in the case of the World Bank report, the African Democratic Party has demanded that the matter be investigated.
Finally, if you have not, you should read the World Bank’s April 2026 Development Update titled, “Nigeria’s Tomorrow Must Start Today: The Case for Early Childhood Development.”
It labels the Nigerian economy as fragile, noting that inflation is punishing households. It also pointed out that FAAC gross revenues rose from N17.1 trillion in 2024 to N37.4 trillion in 2025, increasing from 7.9 per cent to 9.5 per cent of GDP, but flags 5,000 TSA gaps.
It further projected that the number of poor Nigerians rose from about 40 million in 2019 to over 60 million during the Bola Tinubu years.
The Bank acknowledges some reform progress but calls for far more: stronger monetary implementation, increased organic FX flows, electricity sector reform, lower cost of governance, higher non-oil revenue, improved fiscal governance, clearance of audit backlogs, monthly reconciled fiscal data, and more credible budgets.
At the upper echelons of Nigerian governance, they must have winked at one another and guffawed: “More ke? Make we do more?”
But the most important element of the report is the alarm it raises about Nigerian children, with the Bank defining Early Childhood Development as an economic priority.
The World Bank’s figures:
- Nigeria has about 7 million births every year
- Over 110 children per 1,000 die before age five.
- Over 40 per cent of children are stunted.
- Over 52 per cent are not developmentally on track.
- Only 30 per cent of children aged 3–5 can identify five letters, and 34 per cent can recognise numbers from 1 to 5.
The report notes that children who are not stunted are 1.6 times more likely to complete primary school and more than twice as likely to complete secondary school. It also points out that Nigeria’s under-five mortality and stunting rates are significantly worse than those of countries with similar income levels.
Meaning: The poverty capital of the world has another serious human capital problem that might make no sense in the Renewed Hope calculus or understanding: early deprivation becomes school failure, then weak labour-market participation, and ultimately low national productivity.
Keep in mind: this is in a country in which, seven years ago, the ruling APC pledged that it would lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in 10 years.
But this is not a promise that APC is proud of, because in its tender care, Nigeria is travelling more deeply into poverty. As its chieftains borrow and spend, travelling in the executive jet and bulletproof SUVs, the party neither mention the pledge nor offers any apologies.
APC has a serious character problem, which is why it recognises neither its official manifesto, nor even Jagaban’s remodelled, or Renewed Hope. Each is loaded with promises that nobody honours or even remembers.
So, who is going to tell APC to save the Nigerian child?
This is exactly why Nigeria has become a land of smoke and hot air in which neither Nigeria nor Nigerians matter. Because while you can take what you don’t own, you can’t give what you don’t have.
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