FG: Budgeting or barefaced robbery? By Dele Sobowale

By Dele Sobowale FG budgets N1tn for empowerment, SUVs amid rising borrowing pressure – Report, July 27, 2026 Veterans monitoring the formulation and execution of annual budgets can honestly admit one truth. Military regimes were more disciplined. Every annual budget ended on midnight December 31 of the year.

Funds not spent by that time were returned to the Treasury. As you are reading this article in August 2026, some parts of the 2024 Budget are probably still being implemented; and the 2025 budget has not officially closed. That, in a nutshell summarises the sloppiness characterizing the Tinubu administration; which in turn is breeding the worst open corruption in Nigerian history.

It is double tragedy; that we have experienced the most atrocious budget management under a leader claiming to be an accountant and financial expert. Even Buhari, with School Certificate attempted performed better – despite bequeathing an “economy on the brink of bankruptcy”. Today, we have moved closer to the brink; and the evidence is overwhelming.

We start with the low hanging fruit. “Linking Buhari’s govt to PFIPC, groundless, lacks factual basis – BMO.” VANGUARD, July 27, 2026. The story about the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council, PFIPC, broke several weeks ago; and till today, nobody in Tinubu’s government has been able to explain how the fake agency was allocated N1.3 billion in the 2026.

The latest attempt to lay the blame on late President Buhari is being stoutly resisted by the Buhari Media Organisation, BMO, as the VANGUARD report has indicated. Nigerians are still kept in a deliberate fog concerning the origin of an attempted scam. “Islamic Board budgets N18bn for staff” – Daily Trust, July 27, 2026 The report elaborates.

“The National Board for Arabic and Islamic Studies (NBAIS) has planned to spend N18.049 billion on its staff.”. Several questions arise at once; but only two will be asked now. First, what is the staff strength to justify asking for N15bn for salaries and N2.6bn for allowances?