Dele Oye: Nigerians Should Judge Tinubu’s N68.3tn 2026 Budget by Impact, Not Size

•Proposes 40% debt-to-revenue guardrail by 2028

•Wants confusion over oil benchmark addressed 

•Says election spending can put further pressure on current deficit

Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja

A former President of the Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA), Dele Oye, has said Nigerians should judge President Bola Tinubu’s N68.3 trillion 2026 budget by what it delivers and not by its size.

Oye, who is Chairman of the Alliance for Economic Research & Ethics (AERE), in a statement argued that a nation’s budget is a promise that must be funded, executed and accounted for and not just another document.

He recalled that the approved budget in 2026 provides for N68.32331 trillion expenditure, N36.86668 trillion revenue and N31.45663 trillion deficit, pointing out that higher revenue is valuable only when the public can see what it funds.

“For a family, the meaningful test is whether the clinic has essential supplies and the school can keep its doors open. For a business, it is whether power, transport and predictable public services reduce operating costs,” he said.

He maintained if a budget grows substantially after presentation, government should publish a clear reconciliation of the additional amount by project, legacy obligation, ministry and financing source.

Besides, Oye flagged what he called a material discrepancy in the oil price assumption for the year. While some analyses of the approved budget identify $64.85 per barrel, others say the benchmark was raised from $65 dollars to $75 by federal lawmakers. He insisted that the confusion should be addressed by the government.

“Government should publish the authoritative fiscal assumptions and clarify which figure governs,” he said, adding that a credible budget should be honest about uncertainty and should set a base case, a downside case and a trigger for corrective action.

On capital execution, Oye said the Budget Office’s N4.17734 trillion first half capital spending total and the World Bank’s approximately N0.7 trillion fiscal comparison figure have different coverage and are not directly comparable.

He said the Budget Office also reported that implementation of the 2026 ministries, departments and agencies capital budget remained at zero as at June 30, while agencies used funds from the extended 2025 programme.

“An appropriation is authority to spend, it is not proof that citizens have received a working asset,” he said. “The public should be able to trace each major project from its budget year and funding source to verified completion and use,” he emphasised.

Oye called for one public project record showing allocations, releases, payments, independently checked progress and completion, a transparent close out of carried over projects, and readiness and funding tests before new projects are added.

Oye listed risks that could derail the 2026 targets. He said election period spending could put pressure on the deficit. In the same vein, Oye stated that the 2025 capital extension runs to December 31 2026 which creates a risk that agencies will be managing old obligations while trying to start new work. According to him, security shocks can affect oil production, agriculture and project execution.

He said for the remaining weeks of 2026, government should close the 2025 capital programme on the statutory date and publish a realistic first quarter cash plan for 2027 based on confirmed resources.

On debt, Oye proposed a path to reduce the consolidated debt service to revenue ratio to 40 per cent by 2028, from the World Bank’s comparable 49.5 per cent 2025 baseline, which would mean a reduction of 9.5 percentage points over three years.

According to him, the 40 per cent was chosen as an intermediate fiscal guardrail not because it is a universal statutory threshold or a magic number, but that the target should use the same published definition each year.

He also called for disciplined borrowing through enforcement of the Fiscal Responsibility Act’s borrowing purpose rules and publication of borrowing authorised, borrowing raised, debt service and use of proceeds in one quarterly statement.

“Revenue reporting should therefore show, by period, what was forecast, collected, borrowed and spent and how those figures reconcile to the approved budget.

“If a budget grows substantially after presentation, the government should publish a clear reconciliation of the additional amount by project, legacy obligation, ministry and financing source. This is a practical requirement for trust, not a communications exercise,” Oye argued.