Buried inside Nigeria’s 2026 budget is a spending figure large enough to outstrip the combined allocations of seven federal ministries, yet built on a foundation civic technology organisation Tracka says is remarkably hard to verify.
According to Tracka’s analysis, N962.83 billion has been set aside in the 2026 Appropriation Act for SUV procurement and empowerment projects combined, N15.13 billion for 39 vehicles, and N947.70 billion spread across 2,579 separate empowerment initiatives. That total surpasses the N960.27 billion allocated to the Ministries of Industry, Trade and Investment; Housing and Urban Development; Women Affairs; Justice; Livestock Development; Aviation and Aerospace Development; and Petroleum Resources put together, ministries that individually received between N73.1 billion and N177.6 billion.
The scale of the spending is only part of what troubles Tracka. Far more concerning, the organisation says, is how little of it can actually be traced. Of the 2,579 listed empowerment projects, just 70 come with clearly identified implementation locations, a gap Tracka says strikes at the heart of accountability. “How can citizens track projects with no stated location? How can oversight institutions verify implementation? How can taxpayers know who ultimately benefits from these allocations?” the organisation asked.
Compounding the issue is who is actually implementing these projects. Tracka found the funds distributed across 184 agencies, many with no statutory link to empowerment work at all. The Federal Cooperative College in Oji River tops the list with 393 projects worth N127.1 billion, alongside a separate N14 billion allocation for equipment and utility vehicles through the same institution. The Federal College of Horticulture in Dadin-Kowa, Gombe, received 216 projects worth N88.1 billion, while the National Agricultural Development Fund, despite just six listed projects, was allocated N89.5 billion, dominated by N89.09 billion for the Renewed Hope Fertiliser Support Programme, the single largest empowerment line item in the budget.
Tracka stopped short of dismissing empowerment spending altogether, acknowledging it can deliver genuine social and economic value when properly designed. But it warned that vague, poorly targeted programmes have historically become tools of political patronage. “Experience over the years has shown that many poorly defined empowerment projects have become vehicles for political patronage, rewarding loyalists rather than delivering broad-based benefits to citizens,” the organisation said, calling for every budget line to carry a clear purpose, defined location, legally mandated implementer, identifiable beneficiaries, and measurable outcomes.
That call for discipline comes against a deteriorating fiscal backdrop. The government’s 2026 borrowing plan has jumped to N29.20 trillion, an N11.31 trillion increase from earlier projections, while total spending of N68.32 trillion against revenue of N36.87 trillion leaves a deficit of N31.46 trillion, roughly 46 per cent of the budget. Dr Muda Yusuf of the Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise has warned that mounting debt threatens Nigeria’s recently stabilized macroeconomic footing, cautioning that unchecked deficits could trigger a “vicious circle of debt.”
