When a National Budget Becomes a Village Wish List

By Ojudu Babafemi

In recent weeks, I have read a succession of national budget entries so astonishing that I initially dismissed them as fabrications. Then came the one that finally convinced me that we had crossed into dangerous territory: an allocation of almost ₦1 billion for the purchase of musical equipment for a church—not in the budget of a church, not in the budget of a religious organisation, but in the Federal Government of Nigeria’s national budget.

A few days earlier, there had been reports of billions of naira allocated for the renovation and construction of churches and mosques across the country. Then I came across yet another provision: ₦1 billion for the renovation of a village palace.

Now comes perhaps the most disturbing revelation yet. In its July 30 edition, The Punch reported that “about 78 Ministries, Departments and Agencies of the Federal Government set aside nearly ₦400 billion in the 2026 budget for the construction and rehabilitation of community halls, mosques, traditional rulers’ palaces, village market squares and civic centres.”

The newspaper further reported that “more than half of the ₦400bn was earmarked for non-developmental projects,” including the supply of grains and motorcycles, sponsorship of community thrift societies, construction of museums and mini-stadia, and the distribution of tricycles to communities.

At this point, these can no longer be dismissed as isolated irregularities or clerical oversights. They point to something far more fundamental: the steady transformation of Nigeria’s national budget from a strategic instrument of national development into a repository of political patronage and constituency favours.

One cannot help but ask: What has happened to us?

Has our national budget become a document into which anyone with influence can insert whatever catches their fancy? Has the country’s most important financial instrument degenerated into a catalogue of personal favours, constituency appeasement and political patronage?

Perhaps it is time to remind ourselves—and, more importantly, remind our lawmakers—what a national budget is.

A national budget is not a collection of unrelated projects designed to satisfy local interests. It is the financial expression of a nation’s priorities. It is the annual roadmap through which a government mobilises resources to achieve clearly defined national objectives.

It should answer fundamental questions:

• How do we grow the economy?
• How do we improve education?
• How do we strengthen healthcare?
• How do we build infrastructure?
• How do we secure the nation?
• How do we create jobs and reduce poverty?
• How do we prepare the country for the future?

Every line in a serious national budget ought to contribute, directly or indirectly, to answering those questions.

That is how successful nations budget.

Take India, for example.

Since independence, India has approached budgeting as part of a broader national development philosophy. For decades, its annual budgets were anchored on Five-Year Plans that pursued clearly articulated goals—industrialisation, food security, scientific advancement, rural development, infrastructure, technological capacity and human capital.

Even after the Planning Commission gave way to NITI Aayog, the underlying principle remained unchanged: the annual budget must advance long-term national priorities.

Each budget is expected to move India one step closer to where the country intends to be in ten, twenty or thirty years.

That helps to explain how India transformed itself from a country struggling with food shortages into one of the world’s largest economies, a global pharmaceutical hub, a leader in information technology, a nuclear power and a nation capable of landing spacecraft on the Moon and sending missions to Mars.

Those achievements did not come from funding village palaces and community halls or purchasing musical instruments for religious organisations. They came from the relentless investment of public resources in national capacity.

Nigeria once understood this principle.

Ironically, during the military era—which we rightly criticise for its many democratic shortcomings—there was at least a stronger culture of national planning. Long-term development plans existed. Rolling plans existed. Annual budgets generally flowed from those broader national objectives.

It was under such planning that Nigeria conceived and built projects such as the Eleme Petrochemical Complex, the Aluminium Smelter Company at Ikot Abasi and the Ajaokuta Steel Complex.

The vision behind these monumental investments was clear: they were expected to propel Nigeria towards industrialisation. Sadly, what their architects failed to anticipate was not the absence of vision but the failure of governance and management. I have visited these facilities, and one cannot but admire the ambition and foresight of those who conceived them.

One may criticise military rule, but it is difficult to recall annual budgets littered with thousands of unrelated insertions bearing little or no relationship to national development.

Today, however, the budgeting process appears increasingly untethered from any coherent national vision.

Budget discussions have shifted from asking, “What does Nigeria need?” to asking, “What can I insert for my constituency?”

The result is predictable.

The national budget becomes less a development strategy than a marketplace of influence.

Every interest group seeks its share. Every political actor demands a token. Every constituency wants a visible project, whether or not it contributes to national productivity or economic growth.

The Punch investigation is particularly troubling because it shows that this culture is no longer confined to a handful of questionable insertions. It has spread across the machinery of government.

About 78 federal ministries, departments and agencies reportedly made provisions for projects such as mosques, palaces, community halls, village market squares and civic centres—many of them bearing no discernible relationship to the statutory mandates of the institutions making the allocations.

When agencies established to advance defence, research, industry, agriculture or technical development become channels for financing local patronage projects, budgeting ceases to be an exercise in national planning and becomes an exercise in political distribution.

This is not planning. It is fragmentation. It is how nations gradually lose their sense of purpose.

No country has ever become prosperous by reducing its national budget to an aggregation of village projects. Nations develop when scarce public resources are invested in infrastructure, agriculture, education, technology, research, healthcare, manufacturing, transportation, energy and security—the foundations upon which every village, every church, every mosque and every palace ultimately depends.

There is nothing wrong with preserving cultural heritage or supporting religious communities. Traditional institutions deserve respect, and faith organisations play important social roles. But these responsibilities should be undertaken through transparent and appropriate channels, with clear justification and within the framework of government policy—not through arbitrary insertions into the nation’s central financial plan.

When billions meant for national development are diverted into projects whose public value is difficult to justify, the opportunity cost is enormous. The same money could equip hospitals, build laboratories, modernise schools, support farmers, fund research, expand electricity to underserved communities or strengthen our security architecture.

A nation that spends without strategic purpose mortgages its future.

Perhaps the greatest danger is that we are gradually normalising this culture. What appears absurd today becomes routine tomorrow.

If we continue on this path, we may one day find allocations for rainmakers to invoke favourable weather, seers to divine electoral fortunes or magicians to entertain at official ceremonies. We may even budget for buxom women to massage lawmakers and senior public officials—the same obìnrin òṣèrè that Chief Obafemi Awolowo once derisively invoked in condemning the decadence of public life.

We have already seen provisions for Nigeria’s participation in a FIFA World Cup final that we did not even qualify to play.

Haba! What brigandage.

Once a budget loses the discipline of national purpose, there is no logical point at which frivolity ends.

The issue before us, therefore, is larger than a few questionable budget lines. It is about whether Nigeria still possesses a national vision capable of guiding public expenditure.

A budget should tell the story of where a country intends to go. Does it aspire to become an industrial power? A knowledge economy? An agricultural giant? A technological leader?

The budget should answer those questions.

Sadly, ours increasingly tells the story of where hundreds of competing local interests have succeeded in dragging it. Instead of one national vision, we now appear to have thousands of constituency visions stitched together into a single appropriation bill.

A budget is a nation’s declaration of ambition. Ours increasingly declares no ambition at all—only appetite. It tells us not where Nigeria intends to go, but how many competing interests have succeeded in securing a share of the public purse.

A nation may attend to the needs of its villages, but it must never reduce its national vision to them. We cannot build a modern economy one palace renovation, one church sound system, one mosque and one political favour at a time.

Nigeria is not merely running out of money; it is running out of the discipline to distinguish between what is desirable and what is nationally important.

A country that budgets for every appetite will eventually have nothing left with which to build its future.

That is no longer a national budget.

It is a village wish list—and the village is eating the nation.