2025 budgets: Only 6% allocated to healthcare

The Federal Government and 21 of the 36 states of the country have allocated N3.846 trillion of their 2025 budgets to healthcare.

The figure represents a miserly 6.02 per cent of the N63.898 trillion they proposed to spend next year.

This is a far cry from the World Health Organisation, WHO’s recommendation of 13 per cent and the Abuja 2001 Declaration by the African Union of 15 per cent.

Currently, 33 of the 36 states have announced their budgets. Only Imo, Kwara and Rivers are yet to unveil their 2025 budgets.

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Among the 33, only 21 states announced what they would spend on health going by information on their websites and what the governors read at their Houses of Assembly.

Of this figure, only five states — Kano (16.50 per cent), Kaduna (16.07 per cent), Borno (15.39 per cent), Benue (15.09 per cent) and Abia (15 per cent) met the WHO and African Union benchmarks. Ogun (13 per cent) met the WHO recommendation.

The rest including the Federal Government fell behind grossly.

In his N47.9 trillion 2025 budget presentation at the National Assembly, President Bola Tinubu allocated N2.48 trillion or 5.18 per cent to Healthcare.

States that made least allocations to Health include Bayelsa (2.77 per cent), Delta (3.12 per cent), Cross River (4.22 per cent) and Enugu (4.72 per cent).