Former presidential candidate Peter Obi has excoriated President Bola Tinubu for his poor budget implementation.

“President Tinubu inherited a legally signed N21.83 trillion budget for 2023. A few months after taking office, he presented a N2.17 trillion supplementary budget that faced widespread criticism for prioritising benefits for public officeholders at a time when Nigerians were enduring painful economic reforms without a credible social protection framework.

“Instead of restoring fiscal discipline, the president repeatedly expanded the 2023 budget without a clearly defined end date,” Mr Obi said on Monday in a statement on X.

The politician pointed out that in less than three years, Mr Tinubu had exercised appropriation powers over more than N114 trillion in public spending but failed to achieve even 50 per cent budget implementation.

“The pattern persisted with the passage of a N35.06 trillion budget for 2024 and a N54.99 trillion budget for 2025. In less than three years, President Tinubu has exercised appropriation powers over more than N114 trillion in public spending. Yet, the government has failed to achieve even 50 per cent budget implementation, exposing a profound crisis of budget credibility.

“Alarmingly, until mid-2025, Nigeria was effectively operating with about three overlapping budgets, without clear legal or fiscal guidance on when each one expired or began. No serious country manages its budgets or fiscal operations in such a manner,” stated the opposition figure.

He further slammed Mr Tinubu for running 2023, 2024 and 2025 budgets together, insisting such an approach continues to perpetuate the trend of fiscal recklessness.

While condemning the repeal of the 2024 and 2025 budgets and their re-enactment with extended implementation timelines, Mr Obi decried the lack of public information regarding the specific capital projects included or their associated costs, noting it represents fiscal obscurity elevated to the level of state policy.

The ADC chieftain noted that the proposed 2026 budget, despite still lacking critical details, indicated that the administration had no intention of addressing the structural weaknesses at the core of Nigeria’s public finance system.

“This lack of transparency is not accidental; it reflects a deliberate pattern of undermining public scrutiny and debate. The federal government has stopped publishing treasury reports on the opentreasury.gov.ng portal, dismantling a vital transparency framework inherited from the previous administration. In 2025, no budget implementation report was released, regardless of how poor the performance was! No nation can operate with such recklessness and succeed,” he explained.

Mr Obi stressed the need for the country’s return to the January-December budget cycle, which was inherited and mismanaged by Mr Tinubu’s government, adding that the change would enhance effective planning and tracking, promote transparency and accountability, and foster sustainable growth and development.

Presidential spokesman Daniel Bwala dismissed Mr Obi’s statement as ignorant, saying the politician “is bereft of governance knowledge”.