The Federal Government and the World Bank appear to be singing from different hymn sheets over the N54.99 trillion 2025 national budget, a fiscal blueprint the Bretton Woods institution has branded as overly ambitious and potentially precarious.
In a sobering critique, the World Bank raised red flags on key assumptions underpinning the budget — particularly oil output estimates and projected revenues. It warned of possible fiscal slippages that may drive the government back into the arms of the Central Bank through Ways and Means financing, a route previously criticized for fuelling inflation and distorting macroeconomic stability.
The Bank’s advisory did not stop at diagnosis; it prescribed deeper structural reforms, including the long-contested removal of electricity subsidies, stricter fiscal discipline, and a leaner government spending regime — measures it says are necessary to avert another round of fiscal brinkmanship.
But Nigeria's Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, Senator Abubakar Atiku Bagudu, is having none of it. He dismissed the World Bank’s caution, describing the projections in the 2025 budget as “modest” and reflective of Nigeria’s latent economic potential, not its current constraints.
“Budgets must inspire national ambition,” Bagudu declared, insisting that governance must be visionary. “If we tether our fiscal planning to today’s limitations, we’ll never break free from the cycles that have held us back.”
Government officials point to signs of a rebounding economy — including modest revenue growth, renewed investor confidence, and ongoing economic reforms — as evidence that the ship is gradually turning. The broader goal, they maintain, is to place Nigeria firmly on the path to a $1 trillion economy by the year 2030 — a vision that requires bold budgeting and faith in the country’s transformative capacity.
The tension between fiscal realism and economic aspiration is not new, but in a time of tightening global credit and rising domestic expectations, it is a tightrope walk the Tinubu administration must navigate with clarity and conviction.
As the debate deepens, Nigerians are left watching from the sidelines — some hopeful, others skeptical — but all keenly aware that how this budget is financed and implemented will ripple through every market stall, fuel pump, and electricity meter across the nation.