By Gabriel Atumeyi
The numbers tell a story of brazen larceny dressed in legislative garb. Between 2010 and 2025, Nigeria’s National Assembly has systematically inflated budgets to the tune of over N14 trillion – enough to build 14 Lagos-Ibadan expressways or fund the entire health budget for six years. This shocking figure, pieced together from official records, whistleblower accounts and BudgIT’s latest investigation exposing a staggering N6.9 trillion padding in the 2025 budget alone, reveals how budget padding has evolved from occasional malpractice to industrial scale plunder.
It began modestly enough. In 2010, lawmakers slipped in a “mere” N100 billion in questionable constituency projects, treating the national treasury as their personal ATM. Back then, the sums seemed almost trivial compared to what was to come. The following year saw another N80 billion mysteriously appear in the budget, allocated to projects that would never materialise. By 2012, the figure had ballooned to N150 billion, with each passing year normalising what was essentially legalised theft.
The real turning point came in 2016 when suspended lawmaker Abdulmumin Jibrin’s explosive allegations revealed N481 billion in phantom projects, complete with forged signatures and duplicated allocations. His detailed dossier exposed how budget padding had become an art form – projects were invented, costs inflated, and funds diverted with clinical precision. Rather than investigate these serious claims, the House chose to shoot the messenger, suspending Jibrin for 180 days. This sent a clear message to would-be whistleblowers: expose padding at your peril.
The years that followed saw the scam grow exponentially in both scale and audacity. 2018’s N344 billion padding included such creative entries as “construction of invisible bridges” and “training programmes for ghost communities.” Civil society organisations like BudgIT and CISLAC began meticulously documenting these abuses, but their reports were routinely ignored by those in power. The 2020 budget took the brazenness to new heights, allocating N37 billion for National Assembly renovations while millions of Nigerians struggled with basic amenities.
By 2021, the farce reached its peak when Senator Jarigbe Agom shocked his colleagues by revealing how N400 billion meant for constituency projects had been unevenly shared, with some senators collecting as much as N3 billion each while others got peanuts. The chamber erupted in chaos, with lawmakers nearly coming to blows over the revelations. Yet by sundown, the story had died – no investigations were launched, no one was held accountable. Business as usual continued in Nigeria’s hallowed chambers.
BudgIT’s damning 2025 report lifts the veil on the most audacious heist yet – N6.9 trillion in suspicious allocations, including N2.1 trillion for vaguely described “capacity building projects” and N1.4 trillion for “miscellaneous infrastructure development.” The anti-corruption group’s forensic analysis shows how padding now accounts for nearly 30% of the entire federal budget, with some line items inflated by as much as 400% above market rates. Their investigation reveals a sophisticated network of collusion between legislators, bureaucrats and contractors, all feeding at the trough of public funds.
What began as N100 billion in 2010 has snowballed into a N14 trillion racket because the system incentivises theft. Lawmakers know they can insert outrageous sums with near-certain impunity – the Presidency typically grumbles before signing, anti-graft agencies look the other way, and the public’s anger fades by the next news cycle. As one former Appropriations Committee member confessed anonymously: “It’s our turn to eat. If you don’t pad, you can’t play the political game.” This chilling admission encapsulates the institutionalised nature of the problem.
The human cost of this grand theft is both calculable and heartbreaking. That N14 trillion could have built 280,000 primary healthcare centres or funded 5 million university scholarships. It could have provided clean water to every community in Nigeria or ended the housing deficit twice over. Instead, it’s vanished into what activists call “the black hole of Abuja” – a vortex of greed where public funds enter but never benefit the public.
With BudgIT’s latest revelations showing the scam growing exponentially, Nigerians are left asking painful questions. How did we normalise this level of institutionalised corruption? When will this organised looting end? The painful truth may be that a system designed to check excess has become its greatest enabler. The National Assembly, meant to be the people’s watchdog, has instead become the biggest predator of the public purse.
As the 2025 budget makes its way through the legislative process, early signs suggest the padding epidemic is getting worse, not better. The same actors employ the same tactics with increasing boldness, confident in their impunity. Until there are real consequences – prosecutions, asset forfeitures, electoral rejections – this N14 trillion scandal will likely be just the opening chapter of a much longer story of plunder. The numbers don’t lie: Nigeria’s budget padding crisis has grown from an embarrassment to an existential threat to national development.
The solution requires more than just outrage. It demands institutional reforms like an independent budget office, stronger whistleblower protections, and genuine political will to tackle corruption. Most importantly, it requires citizens to remain vigilant and demand accountability at every turn. After all, when N14 trillion can vanish in plain sight, the real scandal isn’t just the theft – it’s our collective tolerance of it. The budget padding machine will keep running until Nigerians find the courage and means to shut it down for good.
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