Lawmakers or Yahoo boys?
The National Assembly wants to run you street
Good morning, Big Brains. It’s weird to imagine that this is just Tinubu’s second year in office. The number of controversies the man and his boys have sparked in two years should be studied. After reading today’s edition of the newsletter, you might agree that this is his most interesting controversy yet.
- Margaret
Word count: ~ 1,100
Reading time ~ 6 mins
Let’s get into today’s edition:
The national assembly has been accused of running you street
CBN is maintaining its interest rate
The Big Deal
The national assembly has been accused of running you street
Word on the street is that the National Assembly is trying to scam Nigerians, and BudgIT, a civic tech organisation, came with all the receipts.
We’ve talked about Nigeria’s 2025 budget so much that we almost sound like broken records, but BudgIT’s recently released report has given us yet another reason to talk about it.
According to the civic tech organisation, your faves at the National Assembly added 11,122 projects worth ₦6.93 trillion into the ₦54.99 trillion national budget. At first glance, this doesn’t look like a problem, but BudgIT’s research shows that these projects are vague, cannot be justified and do not directly benefit Nigerians.
BudgIT’s country director, Gabriel Okeowo, described the National Assembly’s actions as an "assault on fiscal responsibility," and you might agree when we get to the most interesting part.
Of the inserted projects, 3,573 (worth ₦653 billion) were allocated to “federal constituencies.” Another 1,972 projects worth ₦444 billion were pushed into senatorial districts.
Now, to the most interesting part. BudgIT’s research shows that ₦393 billion was set aside for a vague 1,477 streetlight projects, ₦114 billion for 538 borehole projects, and ₦505 billion for 2,122 ICT-related projects. There’s even ₦6.7 billion set aside for the “empowerment of traditional rulers.”
One of the biggest scam indicators in the 2025 budget is that nearly 40% of these mysterious projects (4,371 of them specifically) were dumped into the Ministry of Agriculture’s budget. This inflated the ministry’s actual budget from ₦242 billion to ₦1.95 trillion. Other ministries, like Science and Technology and Budget and Economic Planning, were also given budget boosts through similar questionable insertions.
It gets worse. BudgIT pointed out that small federal agencies that are supposed to have limited, specific roles were being used as cover-ups for unrelated projects. A classic example is the Federal Cooperative College in Oji River, which somehow ended up with a ₦3 billion budget for utility vehicles, ₦1.5 billion for rural electrification in Rivers State, and ₦1 billion for solar streetlights in Enugu. None of these projects has anything to do with the school’s actual mission of providing quality education and training.
The main question BudgIT wants the federal government to answer is, what exactly is going on with our national budget?
Why is this a big deal?
The 2025 budget is 91% higher than 2024’s ₦28.78 trillion. Extra zeroes typically come with increased need for accountability. But the A word isn’t deeply entrenched in the vocabulary of the Tinubu-led administration.
In 2024, the senator representing Bauchi Central, Abdul Ningi, was suspended after alleging that the Senate inserted some questionable and vague projects into the national budget. A few months after he was suspended for making “false accusations”, BudgIT discovered that the federal government allocated ₦732.5 billion to empowerment projects that “are vague and challenging to track due to their nature.” As always, the accountability that Nigerians demanded after both allegations got lost in someone’s spam folder.
Regardless of how you look at it, ₦6.93 trillion isn’t the kind of money that should go into vague projects, especially when it’s twice the amount the Tinubu-led government set aside for the entire education sector.
If you think BudgIT is being extra about these questionable projects, you should know that in 2022, the Chartered Institute of Forensic and Investigative Professionals of Nigeria (CIFIPN) said that 70 to 75% of Nigeria’s national budget is stolen or wasted due to corruption in the government at all levels— and these kinds of projects make it easier for corrupt politicians to waste public funds, leaving average citizens to suffer the effects of their actions.
CBN is maintaining its interest rate
Speaking of suffering citizens, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has decided to remain the bane of the people’s existence by maintaining its 27.50% interest rate. Apparently, borrowing money in this economy isn’t hard enough.
The CBN’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), led by Governor Olayemi Cardoso, reviewed Nigeria’s economic situation and decided to keep things exactly as they were in the first quarter of the year, even though analysts recommended that the CBN listens to the plight of business owners who are the primary victims of the country’s interest rate.
For context, the 27.50% interest rate is the benchmark that influences how much banks charge when you take a loan. Banks increase their charges when the interest rate is high, meaning individuals and businesses are less likely to borrow, spend, or invest.
The CBN justified its decision with the latest National Bureau of Statistics inflation report, which showed that overall inflation dropped slightly in April, from 24.23% in March to 23.71%.
So now, the country is stuck with a lowering inflation rate that means nothing in real life, expensive loans, and an allegedly thieving government. What a time to be alive!
Your next big read
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The Big Picks
South-East Reps Call For Oloyede’s Resignation: The South-East Caucus of the 10th House of Representatives has called for the resignation of the Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, Ishaq Oloyede, over the technical glitch recorded in the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination.
Falana Kicks Against Compulsory Voting Bill, Declares It Unconstitutiona: Human rights lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Femi Falana, has strongly opposed the proposed bill to make voting compulsory in Nigeria, declaring it “unconstitutional” and “impractical” under the current legal framework.
This Week’s Big Question
“Are you voting in 2027, or would you rather go to jail?”
Tola’s response - “I’m not voting for anybody. They should come and carry me.”
You can also share your response here, and if it’s as interesting as Tola’s, we’ll feature it in the next edition.
Let’s settle this thing…
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