1,150 street lights for ₦212 bn amounting to ₦184 m per street light project; other shocking figures in 2024 budget

National Assembly members have come under fire for inserting multiple projects in the president’s initial budget proposal for 2024.

Over the past week, Nigeria’s 2024 budget has come under scrutiny after Senator Abdul Ningi alleged some shady dealings in its preparation and passage.

The Senate ultimately suspended the lawmaker for his utterances, but the extra attention has uncovered some eyebrow-raising activities in the ₦28.7 trillion budget President Bola Tinubu signed in January 2024.

In its examination of the budget, BudgIT, an organisation that facilitates budget reforms, found that National Assembly members inserted thousands of constituency-like projects in the initial budget proposal of ₦27.5 trillion the president submitted in November 2023.

This went beyond the scope of the allocated ₦100 billion they’re allowed to use to execute constituency projects.

But Senators have maintained they have a constitutional duty to contribute to the budget.

BudgIT found that the extra projects were inserted in the budgets of 326 ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) that, in most cases, neither have the mandate nor technical capacity to implement and monitor the execution of the projects.

“1,777 projects worth ₦218.6 billion are to be directly delivered in federal constituencies while 1,308 projects with a value of ₦176 billion are directly in senatorial districts,” the organisation noted.

Aside street lights attracting bogus amount in the budget, others are boreholes installation, ICT projects, construction/renovation of community town halls, empowerment of traditional rulers, construction of classroom blocks, provision of exercise books, training of teachers, road construction/rehabilitation, purchase of security vehicles et cetera.