Nigeria’s public finances are increasingly telling a story that goes beyond the familiar problem of insufficient revenue. The country is confronted with a more difficult question: whether the resources available to government are being deployed in ways that reflect the urgency of its development challenges. From the accumulation of public savings alongside rising borrowing to the meagre provision for persons with disabilities and the inadequacy of long-term funding for epidemic preparedness, a troubling pattern emerges. The problem is as much about the priorities governing public expenditure as it is about the size of government revenue.
A report on Federation Account disbursements between January and September 2026 puts this contradiction into perspective. The Federal Government, states and local governments collectively set aside N3.56tn in savings during the nine-month period, a 95 per cent increase on the N1.83tn recorded in the corresponding period of 2025. Yet the Federal Government has raised its borrowing target for the year by N11.31tn, from N17.89tn to N29.20tn, against a projected budget deficit of N31.46tn. The 2026 budget itself provides for expenditure of N68.32tn against expected revenue of N36.87tn.
These figures deserve more than a cursory comparison. To be clear, the N3.56tn in savings comes from Federation Account revenue and should not be mistaken for money held exclusively by the Federal Government. It involves resources belonging to the three tiers of government under the existing revenue-sharing arrangements. Nor does the existence of savings automatically establish that the government should abandon borrowing. Governments must sometimes borrow to finance infrastructure, meet obligations and undertake investments whose returns extend beyond a single budget cycle. Indeed, the Presidency has defended its borrowing strategy on the grounds that expenditure pressures have outpaced available non-borrowed resources and that the loans are being directed towards productive assets.
However, the distinction between responsible borrowing and fiscal indiscipline must ultimately be established through the quality of expenditure, the returns on public investment and the capacity to meet future repayment obligations. It cannot rest on assurances about the intended use of borrowed funds. When debt servicing consumes an increasing share of government revenue, the country has less room to respond to competing demands, including healthcare, education, security and social protection. The Presidency has acknowledged that debt service accounted for approximately 65 per cent of revenue in the first half of 2026. Such a burden should compel greater scrutiny of both new borrowing and the resources already passing through government accounts.
There is also a question of opportunity cost. Every budgetary decision carries consequences for other priorities that receive less attention or funding. A government may have legitimate reasons to save, invest or borrow, but these decisions must be assessed against the needs that remain unattended. Public finance cannot be judged solely by the volume of money raised, saved or committed to projects. Its real measure is the extent to which public resources improve living conditions, expand economic opportunities and strengthen the institutions on which citizens depend.
This is where the N8.2bn allocated to disability-related programmes and projects in the 2026 Appropriation Act becomes particularly revealing. Disability advocates and public finance analysts have described the allocation as grossly inadequate for a population estimated at more than 30 million persons with disabilities. The amount is expected to support interventions across areas such as skills acquisition, construction, awareness campaigns, assistive devices and other programmes. Yet the scale of these needs makes the allocation difficult to reconcile with any serious ambition towards inclusive development.
The problem extends beyond the size of the appropriation. It reflects the tendency to treat disability as a specialised welfare concern, to be handled by a particular commission or a limited number of government programmes, rather than as a development issue that cuts across virtually every public institution. A person who cannot access a public school because of inadequate facilities, navigate a road without assistance, use public transport safely or obtain appropriate healthcare encounters the consequences of decisions made by several ministries and agencies. Disability inclusion cannot be achieved through a handful of intervention projects while the wider architecture of public services remains inaccessible.
Nigeria already has a legal framework for protecting the rights of persons with disabilities. The Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities (Prohibition) Act, signed in January 2019, provides a basis for addressing exclusion and establishing institutional mechanisms for the protection of their rights. Several states have also enacted disability laws. Yet the distance between legislation and everyday experience remains considerable. Laws do not construct accessible schools, provide assistive technologies, remove barriers to public transportation or create employment opportunities without the necessary funding and implementation.
More importantly, budgetary provision must be examined alongside actual releases and expenditure. An appropriation that exists only on paper offers little relief to its intended beneficiaries. Vague budget lines, inadequate disclosure and weak procurement oversight make it difficult to establish what has been spent, who has benefited and whether the interventions delivered anything of lasting value. The concerns raised by disability advocates about poor releases and corruption therefore deserve serious attention. Government agencies should publish sufficiently detailed information on approved projects, releases, procurement, delivery and beneficiaries. Organisations of persons with disabilities must also be involved in identifying priorities and monitoring implementation. Their participation should extend to the formulation of policies and budgets, rather than being limited to consultations after decisions have already been made.
The consequences of neglect are also visible in the country’s approach to public health. The Federal Government’s approval of a N10bn emergency intervention for the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention has drawn attention to the resources required to prepare for epidemic threats. The NCDC has explained that the intervention is intended to strengthen preparedness against several epidemic-prone diseases, including Ebola, Lassa fever, cholera, meningitis, diphtheria, measles and mpox. It is therefore a broader health security intervention, rather than a fund established exclusively for the current Ebola response.
Nevertheless, the agency’s own assessment exposes the limitations of emergency-driven financing. According to the NCDC, Nigeria requires approximately N522bn to implement its National Action Plan for Health Security between 2025 and 2029, translating to an average annual requirement of N104.4bn. The N10bn intervention represents only about two per cent of that annual requirement. This gap is significant because epidemic preparedness involves far more than responding after an infection has been confirmed. It requires functioning surveillance systems, reliable laboratories, trained personnel, adequate public health facilities, effective border and community monitoring, emergency coordination and the capacity to trace and contain infections before they spread.
Nigeria’s experience with infectious disease outbreaks has repeatedly demonstrated the cost of weaknesses in these systems. The country cannot afford to regard preparedness as an expenditure that becomes urgent only when an outbreak threatens to attract national and international attention. The resources required to maintain disease surveillance, strengthen primary healthcare and build institutional capacity must be provided continuously. Otherwise, the government risks spending considerably more on emergency containment, treatment, disrupted economic activity and the consequences of preventable loss of life.
The distinction between preventive investment and emergency intervention is particularly important. Emergency funding may be necessary to address an immediate threat, but it cannot substitute for the institutional capacity that should already exist before a crisis develops. A health system that depends heavily on extraordinary presidential approvals whenever a serious disease emerges will remain vulnerable to the availability, timing and size of such interventions. Sustainable public health financing must therefore become an established component of national and state budgets, with clear responsibilities for the various tiers of government.
There is a connection between these three issues that deserves attention in the wider debate about economic reform. Nigeria has spent considerable political capital pursuing reforms intended to improve revenue mobilisation, reduce fiscal distortions and create a more sustainable economic framework. However, the success of these reforms cannot be measured exclusively through higher Federation Account receipts, improved revenue figures or the ability of governments to accumulate savings. The purpose of fiscal reform should be to expand the state’s capacity to meet its obligations, particularly where market forces and private investment cannot adequately provide essential public goods.
This requires a more deliberate approach to the relationship between fiscal reserves, borrowing and social investment. Savings should serve identifiable economic purposes, including stabilisation against revenue shocks, financing future development and reducing dependence on expensive borrowing. Borrowing, in turn, must be subjected to rigorous project appraisal, transparent procurement and independent evaluation of outcomes. Where governments are saving and borrowing simultaneously, citizens are entitled to understand the rationale, the respective purposes of these financial decisions and the benefits expected from them. The fact that the savings are distributed across the three tiers of government makes this accountability necessary at federal and subnational levels alike.
States and local governments must also take responsibility for the social consequences of their expenditure decisions. Disability inclusion, primary healthcare and disease surveillance cannot be left to federal intervention alone. These are areas in which state governments have substantial responsibilities and where local institutions are often closest to the people requiring public services. Improved allocations at the federal level will have limited impact if corresponding commitments are absent at state and local government levels.
The National Assembly and state legislatures also have a responsibility beyond approving annual expenditure proposals. Their oversight should extend to the execution of approved budgets, the quality of completed projects and the actual delivery of public services. Budgetary accountability must become more accessible to citizens, particularly those whose needs are routinely obscured by broad expenditure headings and poorly defined intervention programmes. Civil society organisations, professional bodies and the media must sustain scrutiny of public spending, including the recurrent practice of announcing allocations without providing sufficient evidence of implementation.
Ultimately, the credibility of public finance rests on the relationship between what government collects and what citizens experience. A country cannot claim meaningful fiscal progress while large sections of its population remain excluded from essential services and public institutions struggle to protect people against foreseeable threats. Neither savings nor borrowing is inherently virtuous. Their value depends on the economic and social outcomes they produce.
Nigeria must therefore move beyond the narrow politics of budgetary figures and confront the priorities behind them. The N3.56tn in public savings, the N8.2bn disability allocation and the N10bn emergency health intervention represent different aspects of the same national challenge: ensuring that public resources translate into public value. Fiscal responsibility must be measured not only by how carefully governments manage their accounts, but also by how seriously they discharge their obligations to the people whose resources they administer. A sound public finance system should leave the country better prepared for the next economic shock, more capable of protecting its most vulnerable citizens and less dependent on emergency measures to perform responsibilities that ought to be routine.
