A national budget is supposed to tell citizens what government intends to collect, borrow and spend within a defined period. That is why the phrase “2025 budget” naturally suggests a plan that belongs to 2025.
Nigeria is now testing that assumption.
On 29 September 2026, both chambers of the National Assembly approved another extension of the capital component of the 2025 Appropriation Act, moving the deadline from 30 September to 31 December 2026. The extension followed an executive request and was justified as a way to allow ministries, departments and agencies to complete funded capital projects and avoid abandoning work already in progress.
This is not the first adjustment. The capital implementation period was previously moved from 31 December 2025 to 31 March 2026, then to 30 June, then to 30 September and now to the final day of 2026.
The immediate logic is understandable. The institutional implication is more uncomfortable. Nigeria is effectively operating across overlapping fiscal years, and repeated extensions raise questions about planning, procurement, cash releases, legislative oversight and whether the annual budget is still functioning as an annual management instrument.
A budget is more than permission to spend
The Appropriation Act gives government legal authority to spend public money for specified purposes. But an appropriation is not the same thing as cash in a ministry’s bank account.
For a capital project to move from the budget book to reality, several things have to happen. The project must be designed and costed. Procurement procedures must be completed. Contractors may need to be selected. Funds must be released. Work must begin. Certificates and invoices must be processed. Monitoring has to occur. In many cases, land, permits, counterpart funding or coordination among agencies must also be resolved.
A project can therefore appear in a budget and still remain unimplemented months later.
That distinction is important because public debate often assumes that once the National Assembly approves a figure, the project has been financed. It has not. The budget creates authority. Execution depends on revenue, cash management and administrative capacity.
Why capital budgets are easier to extend than recurrent spending
The current extension applies to the capital component of the 2025 budget.
Recurrent expenditure covers items such as salaries, pensions and routine operations. These costs are tied closely to the calendar because workers must be paid each month and government offices must keep functioning.
Capital expenditure is different. It finances assets and projects such as roads, hospitals, schools, power infrastructure, water schemes and equipment. Many of these projects naturally take more than one year to complete.
There is nothing abnormal about a multi-year infrastructure project. The problem arises when the annual budget system treats a long project as though each year were self-contained, while the procurement and financing reality runs across several years.
In stronger public-investment systems, multi-year projects are planned as multi-year commitments, with clear annual cash requirements. Repeatedly extending an old annual budget is a more improvised way of solving the same problem.
What the four extensions tell us
The Senate said the latest extension is the fourth amendment of the 2025 capital implementation timeline.
Each extension can be defended individually. A ministry may have money already released. A road may be halfway completed. Cancelling the appropriation at the end of September could create abandoned projects, contractor claims and additional costs when the project is re-budgeted.
But when extensions become routine, the pattern itself becomes evidence.
It may indicate that revenue arrived later than expected. It may reflect delays in procurement. It may point to unrealistic project schedules. It can expose weak project preparation. It may also reflect the complexity created when previous budgets are already being carried forward.
The correct response is not to assume one cause. Government should publish the execution data that shows what happened.
Nigeria is running the risk of budgeting by accumulation
The danger of overlapping budget years is that public finance becomes additive.
Projects from an older budget remain open. New projects enter the following budget. Ministries now have two or more sets of capital commitments. Contractors compete for attention and cash releases. Oversight becomes harder because it is less obvious which appropriation is financing which stage of work.
This can also distort headline budget figures. A new budget may look enormous, but part of the administrative capacity of government is still occupied with unfinished work from previous years.
For citizens, the practical question is simple: when government announces a new road, school or hospital allocation, is it funding a genuinely new project or adding another commitment to a pipeline that is already congested?
Without project-level reporting, that question is difficult to answer.
Extension can protect value already created
There is a legitimate case for an extension.
Suppose a contractor has mobilised to site, completed 70 per cent of a bridge and submitted verified certificates for work already done. If the legal spending authority expires before the final stages are paid for, government may either abandon the project temporarily or force the agency to recreate the appropriation in a new budget.
Both options can be wasteful.
Construction sites deteriorate. Prices change. Contractors demobilise and remobilise. Equipment is moved. Communities wait longer. Inflation can increase the final cost.
Extending a capital appropriation can therefore protect public value where projects are genuine, funded and already advanced.
That is the strongest argument for the National Assembly’s decision.
But extension can also hide poor implementation
The opposite risk is equally important.
If a project was poorly prepared from the beginning, extending the budget does not fix the design. If a ministry delayed procurement for months, an extension can remove the pressure to improve. If a project has no realistic funding source, additional time may simply prolong uncertainty.
This is why every extension should be accompanied by a public list of the projects it is intended to protect.
For each project, Nigerians should be able to see the original appropriation, amount released, amount spent, physical completion rate, contractor, revised completion date and reason for delay.
That would turn the extension from a legislative date change into an accountability exercise.
Cash releases are the bridge between revenue and projects
One of the least understood parts of budgeting is cash management.
Government may approve a capital project but delay its release because actual revenue is below forecast, debt service is high or other urgent expenditures have priority.
This is why optimistic revenue assumptions can damage capital implementation. Salaries and debt obligations are difficult to postpone. Capital projects often become the adjustment item when cash is tight.
In practice, a country can have a legally approved capital budget that is much larger than the cash available to execute it.
Nigeria’s recurring budget-extension problem should therefore be examined together with revenue forecasting. If annual budgets repeatedly assume resources that arrive later or do not arrive at all, capital execution will continue to slip.
Procurement timing matters more than most political debates admit
Even when money is available, procurement can consume months.
Large public projects require specifications, advertisements, bid evaluations, approvals, due diligence and contract awards. Where procurement begins late, construction may start near the end of the fiscal year.
That is a design problem.
A serious reform would allow procurement preparation to begin before the new fiscal year once the broad budget framework is clear, while ensuring no contract becomes legally effective until appropriation authority exists. Several countries use variants of this approach to reduce the number of months lost after a budget is passed.
Nigeria should also distinguish between a project that is delayed because due process was properly followed and one delayed because an agency failed to plan.
The legislature has an oversight problem too
The National Assembly authorises both the original budget and the extensions. That gives it a responsibility beyond passing amendment bills.
Committees should ask why each affected ministry needs more time.
If the explanation is delayed cash release, the Finance Ministry and Budget Office should provide the record. If the explanation is procurement, the relevant agency should explain the timeline. If the problem is contractor performance, the public should know what sanctions or remedies are being used.
Without this discipline, extensions can become routine administrative clean-up rather than a trigger for learning.
The question should not be, “Should the deadline be extended?” It should be, “What changed because of the last extension, and why is another one necessary?”
Capital budgeting should become genuinely multi-year
Nigeria already has medium-term fiscal frameworks, but project management often remains trapped in annual appropriations.
Major infrastructure should have a clear life-cycle cost and a financing plan that covers the entire project. The annual budget should then show the amount required in that particular year.
For example, a four-year road project should not be treated as four unrelated annual announcements. It should have one project identity, one approved cost baseline, a schedule, annual milestones and a transparent record of revisions.
This would reduce the temptation to keep reopening old appropriations merely because the project was designed as though one calendar year were enough.
Too many new projects can weaken every project
Nigeria’s political incentives also matter.
Legislators, ministers and communities understandably want new projects. New projects create visible promises. Completing an old drainage system or finishing an existing road may attract less political attention than announcing a new one.
The result can be a growing stock of projects competing for limited capital resources.
A better rule would prioritise completion. Before government adds a large number of new projects to the capital budget, it should disclose the value of ongoing projects and the amount required to finish them.
Public investment is not improved by having the longest list. It is improved by converting money into usable assets.
Citizens need one project dashboard across budget years
A project should not disappear from public view because the calendar changes.
Nigeria should maintain a single national capital-project dashboard with a permanent project identification number. Citizens should be able to search a road, hospital, school or water project and see every budget year in which it appeared, every amount appropriated, every release, contractor information, physical progress and current status.
That would solve part of the confusion created by overlapping budgets.
Instead of asking whether a project belongs to the 2025 or 2026 budget, the public could ask whether the project is progressing and how much it has cost.
Digital public finance should make this possible.
The budget calendar itself needs discipline
Annual budgeting works best when preparation, legislative approval, procurement and execution follow a predictable timetable.
If the budget is approved late, agencies start late. If releases are delayed, construction starts late. If old budgets remain open, the next cycle becomes more complicated. The result is a chain in which one year’s delay becomes the next year’s starting problem.
Breaking that chain requires discipline across the executive and legislature.
Budget preparation must begin early. Projects should be screened before inclusion. Revenue assumptions should be realistic. Procurement plans should be ready. Cash releases should follow predictable rules. Oversight should focus on outcomes rather than only allocation sizes.
What the December deadline should be used for
The new 31 December 2026 deadline should not simply buy another three months.
Government should use the period to publish a closing report on the 2025 capital budget. The report should state how much was appropriated, released and spent; how many projects were completed; how many remain unfinished; and why.
The National Assembly should then use those findings when considering future appropriations.
If the same agencies repeatedly fail to execute their capital allocations, allocating them even larger sums without reform does not solve the problem.
Nigeria needs to separate project continuity from budget indiscipline
The strongest defence of the extension is continuity. Government should not abandon viable projects merely because a legal spending window expires.
The strongest criticism is discipline. An annual budget that survives through the entire next year begins to lose its meaning as an annual plan.
Both points can be true.
The answer is not to choose between finishing projects and keeping a credible budget calendar. Nigeria should redesign capital budgeting so that multi-year projects are legally and financially recognised as multi-year projects, while annual spending remains subject to clear limits and reporting.
If that reform happens, future governments will not need repeated extensions to do what proper project planning should have anticipated from the beginning.
The 2025 budget can still deliver value in 2026. But Nigeria should not normalise the idea that every budget needs an extra year to become real.
Sources and further reading
- Channels Television, 29 September 2026: House extends 2025 capital budget to December 31 (https://www.channelstv.com/2026/09/29/just-in-house-of-reps-extends-2025-capital-budget-implementation-to-december-31/)
- Channels Television, 29 September 2026: Senate again extends 2025 capital budget (https://www.channelstv.com/2026/09/29/senate-again-extends-2025-budget-capital-implementation-to-december-31/)
- Budget Office of the Federation (https://budgetoffice.gov.ng/)
- World Bank Nigeria country overview: fiscal and public-investment-management context (https://www.worldbank.org/ext/en/country/nigeria)
A. Joshua Adedeji
A. Joshua Adedeji is a leadership strategist, organisational development consultant, author, teacher and values-driven transformation leader. He writes on leadership, strategy, governance, organisational effectiveness, business, personal development and Nigeria’s social and economic transformation, connecting ideas and current realities to practical implications for leaders, institutions, entrepreneurs and citizens. His work is shaped by a commitment to clear thinking, responsible leadership, stronger institutions and the development of people and systems capable of producing lasting impact.
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