‎Barely 15 days to the end of year 2025 president Tinubu is yet to present the 2026 annual budget to the National Assembly.

‎Budget and budget presentation is a very crucial process of governance and most successful countries don’t joke with it.

‎But as it is this present regime has been joking with this all important aspect of governance, hence the delay and less importance that is attached to it.

‎Back to the days of presidents Obasanjo, Yardua, and Goodluck Jonathan particularly when Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was the finance minister, annual budgets were presented to the National Assembly for the legislators to have ample time to scrutinize, panel beat and overhaul the gamut of the country’ s next year expenditure on time.

‎What we had before is that by September or October the president would have presented the budget to the National Assembly.

‎But with the coming of this regime budget presentation and scrutiny has always been treated with levity as the man at the helm of affairs knows the kind of Senate and house of representatives Nigeria has now, a National Assembly that is ever willing to do the binding of the president without blinking an eyelid.

‎Perhaps it is in this line of thoughts that one of them in the person of Adams Oshiomole has come out to tag the Akpabio led Senate as a rubber stamp. Oshiomole in doing this cried out that most bills that come to the Senate that require thorough and detailed scrutiny just receive Senate approval and endorsement particularly if it comes from the presidency.

‎There is no need to be-labour the fact that as important as the budget is to the life of the country, it requires time, expertise and commitment to thoroughly x-ray the document and finally come out with a budget that will propel the country to prosperity.

‎Any country that is without committed fiscal discipline is bound to fail and Nigeria is not far from it with what is happening now

‎Imagine that the year is drawing to an end with end of year festivities and possibilities of the members of the National Assembly going on the annual Christmas break and the budget is yet to hit the floor of the National Assembly.

‎Nigerians will not be surprised if President Tinubu in a few days to Christmas presents the budget and as usual the senators and house of representatives members will sing for him “On Your Mandate We Shall Stand” and within the next 48 hours, the budget will be passed.

‎This fears is predicated on the fact that the regime has a policy of having an approved budget for the coming year ready for running from the first day of January of the new year.

‎What makes the situation more precarious is that verified sources has it that the government is still implementing the 2023, 2024 and 2025 budgets which they have not yet concluded. What a country!

‎To make matters worse wife of the president, Remi Tinubu few days ago said publicly that by 2026 Nigeria will stop borrowing and other countries will start borrowing from us. My village people has a saying that is this the leg that the cow will use to move from Umuahia to Isuikwuato.

‎How can Nigeria stop borrowing in 2026 when president Tinubu is asking for over N17 trillion loan. How is that possible without an entrenched fiscal discipline that by few days to end of the year the budget for 2026 has not been presented to the National Assembly, not to talk of its consideration and passage.

‎As earlier alluded Nigeria will not be surprised if in a few days time, Tinubu presents the budget and instead of singing the national anthem, senators and house of representatives members will sing “On Your Mandate We Shall Stand” and within the next 48 hours the country will have a brand new budget for 2026.

‎If Justices of Supreme Court and Judges could allow the song in their hallowed conference what then stops the national Assembly from replicating that after all they have been doing that in the last two years!

‎The bottomline is that any budget that is not well prepared, have early presentation to National Assembly, have enough time for detailed scrutiny and consideration will come out as dead on arrival and a mere tissue paper that is worthless.

‎Perhaps this is the reason why as at December, 2025 the country is still grappling with implementation of three successive budgets with none of them effectively completed.

‎Godswill Akpabio as the Senate President is going down in history as the worst since independence in the area of subservience, ineptitude, incompetence, immorality, indiscipline and everything, a Senate president should not be.

‎Nigerians as usual will suffer the brunt of this late presentation of budget as nothing significant may change in their already brutalized and traumatized lives as the fiscal discipline that the president supposed to use to bring the country to prosperity is relegated to the background.

‎The question on the lips of many Nigerians is when will all this stop and when will Nigerians have a breathe of fresh air especially in the area of fiscal discipline.

‎*Austine Uche-Ejeke, public affairs analyst, author of East or West home is the best and publisher of Agenda Papers wrote via eaustineuche@yahoo.com*

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