…Senate shifts capital implementation deadline to December 31 despite Tinubu’s pledge to end overlapping budgets
The Senate has extended the implementation period of Nigeria’s 2025 capital budget to December 31, 2026, keeping the spending framework open for another three months despite repeated assurances by the Bola Tinubu administration that overlapping budgets would end.
The extension, approved during Tuesday’s plenary, moves the deadline from September 30 to December 31, marking the fourth extension of the capital component of the 2025 Appropriation Act.
The House of Representatives also approved the extension on Tuesday, meaning ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) will have until the end of the year to implement capital allocations under the 2025 budget.
The latest development effectively means that a budget originally meant to expire in 2025 will remain operational throughout most of 2026.
The Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, announced the passage after the bill seeking to amend the implementation period passed through first, second and third readings on the same day.
The bill was sponsored by Senate Leader Opeyemi Bamidele, who said the extension was necessary to allow MDAs to complete capital projects for which funds had already been appropriated and released.
According to Bamidele, allowing the deadline to lapse could create difficulties for government agencies, expose ongoing projects to abandonment and undermine the value of funds already committed.
He said the extension would provide an administrative window for the completion of critical projects, while supporting local contractors and improving the utilisation of released funds.
Fourth extension
The latest extension continues a pattern that began after the original implementation timetable for the 2025 capital budget was altered.
The budget was initially scheduled to expire at the end of 2025, but lawmakers extended the implementation period to March 31, 2026. When that deadline expired, it was moved again to June 30.
A third extension subsequently pushed the deadline to September 30.
Tuesday’s decision is therefore the fourth extension, taking the implementation of the 2025 capital budget to December 31, 2026.
Tinubu’s single-budget pledge
The latest extension also brings renewed attention to President Tinubu’s earlier pledge to end the practice of running overlapping budgets.
While presenting the 2026 budget proposal to a joint session of the National Assembly in December 2025, Tinubu said all outstanding capital liabilities from previous years would be fully funded and closed by March 31, 2026.
He said Nigeria would thereafter operate on a single budget and abandon what he described as the practice of budget rollover.
The latest extension means the 2025 capital budget will remain open until December 31, 2026, well beyond the March deadline set out by the President.
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The issue had already surfaced in June when the Senate granted the third extension, despite similar assurances that the country would stop operating overlapping budgets.
Why lawmakers approved it
Bamidele argued that the extension was not intended to perpetuate overlapping budgets but to protect public investments already captured in the appropriation.
He said abandoning projects because of the expiration of the statutory budget window could result in wasted public resources and leave critical infrastructure unfinished.
Deputy Senate President Barau Jibrin similarly supported the extension, saying additional time would help prevent the proliferation of abandoned projects.
Senate Minority Leader Abba Moro also backed the measure but cautioned against turning the debate into an opportunity for partisan blame.
Moro said the priority should be ensuring that government programmes and projects are implemented rather than allowing them to be abandoned because of the expiration of the budget timeline.
A recurring fiscal problem
The repeated extensions have continued to raise questions about Nigeria’s budget implementation cycle, particularly the ability of government agencies to execute capital projects within the period for which appropriations are made.
Earlier reports on the June extension noted concerns over unutilised releases, procurement timelines and delays in project implementation.
The latest extension therefore keeps the debate alive over whether the problem lies principally in the statutory budget calendar, delayed releases, procurement processes, project execution capacity or a combination of these factors.
For now, however, the immediate consequence is clear: Nigeria’s 2025 capital budget will remain alive until December 31, 2026.
And while lawmakers say the extension is intended to protect ongoing projects and public investments, it also means the administration’s earlier March 31 target for closing previous capital liabilities and moving to a single-budget cycle has not been achieved.