By Francis Ekajime
I have been writing about Nigeria’s budget for the better part of two decades. In that time, I have chronicled the same story year after year. The executive presents a budget. The National Assembly adds to it. The executive complains about the additions and the National Assembly defends its constitutional powers, the budget is signed, and then the cycle begins again with the next fiscal year.
What we are witnessing today with the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council is the logical outcome of a legislature that has, for decades, treated the budget as a personal ATM rather than a national document. An agency that did not exist. A forged appointment letter. A falsified signature of the Chief of Staff. An office at the Federal Secretariat. A website. Letterheads. And N1.3 billion allocated to a ghost by the National Assembly without a single question.
That last part is what should disturb every Nigerian. Not the audacity of the fraudster, that is predictable, or the civil servants who failed their due diligence, that is also predictable. What is not predictable is a National Assembly that would approve N1.3 billion for an agency that had no legal backing, no physical presence, and whose sole representative was a man with a forged letter and an extraordinary gift for audacity.
But perhaps it is predictable. Because this is the same National Assembly that, in the 2025 budget, inserted 11,122 projects valued at N6.93 trillion with little to no justification. That is more than the combined allocations to security, education, and health in that same budget. One thousand four hundred and seventy-seven streetlight projects worth N393.29 billion. Five hundred and thirty-eight boreholes totalling N114.53 billion. Two thousand one hundred and twenty-two ICT projects valued at N505.79 billion. And N6.74 billion for the “empowerment of traditional rulers”.
These are not development projects, they are political slush funds disguised as constituency projects.
BudgIT, the civic organization that has tracked Nigeria’s budget for years, exposed how the National Assembly has turned the budget process into a playground for self-serving political interests. Thirty-nine percent of all insertions—4,371 projects worth N1.72 trillion—were forced into the Ministry of Agriculture’s budget alone, inflating its capital allocation from N242.5 billion to N1.95 trillion.
Ministries, departments, and agencies that lack the technical capacity to execute such projects became dumping grounds for politically motivated projects. The Federal Cooperative College, Oji River—a training institution—was saddled with N3 billion for utility vehicles, N1.5 billion for rural electrification in Rivers State, and N1 billion for solar streetlights in Enugu State . None of these fall within its statutory mandate. None of them will ever be properly executed. And none of them will ever benefit the people they are supposed to serve.
This is not a new phenomenon. The National Assembly has been doing this for decades. In 2016, Abdulmumin Jibrin, then Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriation, was sacked for raising an eyebrow over N40 billion allegedly set aside for ten principal officers of the National Assembly, while N60 billion was to be shared among the remaining lawmakers for constituency projects. He was removed for snitching on the leadership. The leadership continued as if nothing had happened.
That same year, projects worth N480 billion were discovered to have been fraudulently inserted into the budget during the defence sessions. A Federal High Court ordered President Buhari to direct security agencies to investigate the padding and prosecute those indicted. Nothing happened. No one was prosecuted. The matter simply disappeared .
Year after year, the same story. In 2017, N160 billion added. In 2018, N960 billion added. In 2019, N90 billion added. In 2020, N480 billion added. In 2021, N590 billion added. In 2022, N731 billion added. Each year, President Buhari complained about the insertions. Each year, he signed the budget anyway. Each year, nothing changed.
In 2024, Senator Abdul Ningi told Nigerians that the National Assembly had padded the budget by over N3 trillion. He was suspended for three months for his trouble. Senator Jarigbe Jarigbe, during the debate on Ningi’s suspension, alleged that senior senators got N500 million each for their constituency projects. The Senate leadership did not deny this. They simply moved on.
This brings us to the present. The phantom agency scandal is not an isolated incident. It is the logical outcome of a culture that has been allowed to fester for decades. A culture where the budget is not a development document but a distribution mechanism. A culture where lawmakers see the national purse as their personal estate. A culture where oversight has been abandoned in favor of the more profitable business of sharing the national cake.
BudgIT noted that the practice which began as isolated irregularities has, over the years, evolved into a deeply entrenched culture of exploitation and abuse by top-ranking members of the National Assembly.
The Presidency has been conspicuously silent. According to BudgIT, they submitted formal letters outlining their findings to the Presidency, the Budget Office, and the National Assembly. These letters were acknowledged. But no response was received from any of the institutions. And not a single institution has taken responsibility for the anomalies. Silence, in the face of overwhelming evidence, amounts to complicity.
But the primary failure is the National Assembly. The institution that is supposed to serve as a check on the executive. The institution that is supposed to scrutinize the budget. The institution that is supposed to ask the hard questions.
Where were the questions when N6.93 trillion was inserted into the 2025 budget? Where were the questions when N1.3 billion was allocated to the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council? Where were the lawmakers who were supposed to ask: what does this agency do? How was it established? Why is it not in the executive proposal? Where is the legal instrument establishing it?
The answer is that they were nowhere. They were going through the motions. They were approving what was placed before them. They were doing what they always do: rubber-stamping the budget and moving on to the next item on the agenda.
The National Assembly has become what a Punch editorial recently described as one of the weakest links in Nigeria’s democratic chain. A study by the AdvoKC Foundation found that the 10th National Assembly fulfilled only 26.8 percent of its commitments in the House of Representatives and 44.11 percent in the Senate. They scored nearly 100 percent in one area: approving executive requests with little or no scrutiny. Executive bills that ordinarily require rigorous legislative processes were hurriedly passed, some within just two hours. Supplementary budgets and loan requests were routinely approved within days of executive submission with minimal scrutiny .
Former Senate President Bukola Saraki once observed that a parliament that cannot say no is not a parliament at all. By that standard, the 10th National Assembly is not a parliament at all. It is a conveyor belt for executive proposals.
SERAP has given Senate President Godswill Akpabio and Speaker Tajudeen Abbas seven days to release all documents relating to how the N1.3 billion phantom agency allocation found its way into the budget. The organization has asked for certified copies of records identifying the members of the committees that considered the allocation and the names of all public officers who appeared before those committees. They have asked whether the allocation formed part of the executive’s original bill or was inserted during the legislative process. They have asked whether any lawmaker raised concerns about the legal status of this council.
Now that the scandal is public, the National Assembly must speak. They must tell us how a phantom agency found its way into the budget. They must tell us who is responsible. And they must not, under any circumstances, “off the mic” on this one.
I have watched the National Assembly sidestep accountability too many times. I have watched them turn the budget into a game of smoke and mirrors. They are always ready to speak on matters that do not matter. They are always ready to issue press releases. They are always ready to show up on television and posture. They are always ready to give themselves standing ovations.
But when the public demands answers, they suddenly lose their voice. They suddenly go “off the mic.”
Well, not this time. Not on this one. The mics are on. The country is watching. The National Assembly has nowhere to hide.
I am not holding my breath. But I am watching. And so should every Nigerian.
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