The African Democratic Congress, ADC, has described President Bola Tinubu’s 2026 budget proposal as a dangerous debt trap that threatens to mortgage Nigeria’s future and deepen the country’s fiscal crisis.
In a preliminary review of the budget presented to the National Assembly by President Tinubu, the opposition party said the proposal exposes growing fiscal recklessness, administrative chaos and what it called a disturbing lack of concern for future generations.
The statement by the ADC’s National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, faulted the government’s claim that the proposal represents a ‘Budget of Consolidation, Renewed Resilience and Shared Prosperity,’ arguing that the document reflects a continuation of failed fiscal practices under the Tinubu administration.
“What was presented was only a consolidation of the fiscal recklessness and renewed wishful thinking that have become the hallmark of the Tinubu administration. If approved, the only thing this budget is capable of sharing is more debts and greater misery in the years ahead,” the ADC said.
“The 2026 budget proposal only copies the templates of the failed, unimplemented and perhaps, unimplementable 2024 and 2025 budgets and will most likely end up in the same way.
“We are witnessing a government pursuing policies without a stable foundation,” the party said, adding that the practice of operating three or more national budgets at the same time reflects what it described as Tinubu’s approach to fiscal management.
“Rather than confront the problems, the Tinubu administration has continued to kick the can down the streets, believing that they can continue to hide the yawning cracks under mountains of unsustainable debts that mortgage the future generation.”
On revenue projections, the party described the figures contained in the budget as unrealistic, recalling that revenues rose to about N20 trillion in 2024 largely due to currency devaluation, before being doubled to N40 trillion for 2025 and increased to N58.57 trillion in the 2026 proposal.
“This is not vision, it is fantasy,” the ADC said.
The party questioned the $64-per-barrel oil benchmark used in the budget, warning that weakening oil projections and softening global prices make the assumptions risky and detached from reality. It said the N34 trillion revenue target ignores alternative scenarios and depends on conditions that no longer exist.
More worrying, the ADC said, is the size of the proposed deficit, noting that the government plans to borrow about N24 trillion against projected revenues of N34 trillion.
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“A budget that plans to generate N34trillion in revenue while borrowing N24trillion is an admission of fiscal insolvency. In no sane or functional fiscal system would a deficit-to-revenue ratio of 70 percent be considered acceptable,” the statement said.
“It is an unpardonable sin to raise massive debts to fund reckless spending, effectively burying our children under a mountain of debt obligations before they even enter the workforce.”
The review also highlighted rising debt servicing costs, which the party said have climbed from N12.63 trillion in 2024 to a projected N15.52 trillion in 2026.
“There is no fiscal doctrine on earth that justifies a path of high deficits paired with such astronomical servicing costs,” the ADC said.
