Tinubu Urged to Treat 2025 Capital Budget with Urgency — Fiscal Transparency Advocates

President Bola Tinubu has been urged to treat the 2025 capital budget as a national emergency by the Coalition for Equitable Development and Fiscal Justice, or CEDFJ, a civic accountability organization. The group warns that bureaucratic bottlenecks under the Ministry of Finance are impeding economic recovery and undermining public confidence in advance of the 2027 elections.

The group said that the nation’s fiscal management, which is overseen by Finance Minister Wale Edun, “has become a serious drag on the President’s reform agenda” in a statement signed on Monday by its president, Dr. Gbenga Akinbowale, and national secretary, Gloria Maduegbuna. The group accused the ministry of failing to convert policy intent into concrete results.

The President’s economic framework now has the Ministry of Finance as its weakest point. The statement states, “The President has shown courage in reforming foreign exchange policy, national planning, and oil subsidies, but his finance team continues to stifle these reforms with slow execution, delayed capital releases, and bureaucratic aloofness.”

The group claimed that Nigeria’s fiscal system “has become trapped in a cycle of excuses and inefficiency” and that the government runs the risk of losing the support of the populace at a crucial political juncture if immediate action is not made to reform the budget implementation process.

The 2025 capital budget must now be viewed as a national emergency by the president. Every year, the same bureaucratic cycle is repeated, money is granted beyond the deadline, projects stop in the middle, and appropriations lose all of their value due to inflation. The statement went on, “This cannot continue under an administration that came to power promising a break from the past.”

As the 2027 election cycle approaches, CEDFJ cautioned that the present rate of fiscal performance “is not politically sustainable,” emphasizing that delays in capital funding will lessen the impact of Tinubu’s reforms.

Every unfinished hospital, electricity installation, or road project that has stagnated serves as a reminder that people are still waiting for the Renewed Hope that was promised to them. No amount of political messaging will make up for subpar performance if these expectations are not fulfilled.

According to Akinbowale, the coalition’s analysis of previous budgets revealed that between 2021 and 2024, fewer than 70% of capital allocations were used in the majority of MDAs. If this trend continues, it might seriously impair important infrastructure projects in 2025.

“Repeating the same bureaucratic routines that have failed for years is no longer a strategic way to solve the same problem. In order to facilitate progress rather than serve as a gatekeeper of lethargy, the Ministry of Finance needs to be overhauled. This process must be personally led by the President.

He encouraged Tinubu to require quarterly performance reports from the Accountant-General’s office and the finance ministry, as well as to set up a direct presidential monitoring system for capital releases.

“The Renewed Hope Agenda’s legitimacy is based on how faithfully it is followed, not on how effectively the budget is drafted. The organization cautioned, “We risk undermining the very hope that brought this government to power if 2025 becomes another year of excuses.”