The 2025 Budget Paradox: A Decade of Stagnation and Missed Opportunities: Reflecting on Nigeria’s Budget Trends
The 2025 budget marked the 10 years of the All Progressives Congress leadership of Nigeria. In the ten years of their government, Nigeria’s federal budget has grown significantly in naira terms, yet in USD terms, the growth tells a different story.
In 2014, President Jonathan’s last budget was the US dollar value of the budget at the prevailing exchange rate of $27 billion. Ten years later, the 2025 budget proposal is $31 billion, a marginal and stagnating 14% growth.
The story gets more disturbing compared to the previous decade of 2004 to 2014. In 2004, President Obasanjo’s budget in dollar terms was $9 billion, equivalent to the prevailing exchange rate. By 2014, ten years later, the budget tripled from $9 billion in 2004 to $27 billion in 2014—a 200% increase.
Over the past ten years, the stagnation in US Dollar terms reveals the effects of poor economic management, inflation, and weak currency policies.
A Stark Reality: The Police Budget Comparison
To bring home the implications of the ten years of stagnation, let’s compare the 2025 police budget proposal with our African peers’ proposals.
Our security challenges are worsening, yet Nigeria’s investment in policing remains alarmingly low compared to peer nations in US Dollars:
Nigeria (2025):
Total police budget: $798.59 million
Per capita: $3.43 (2024: $2.60)
South Africa (2024/25):
Total police budget: $6.02 billion
Per capita: $100.12
Egypt (2024):
Total police budget: $1.9 billion
Per capita: $16.60
These figures paint a grim picture of the impact of the stagnation on sectoral allocations. According to these numbers, South Africa spends 28 times more per person on policing than Nigeria, while Egypt spends nearly 5 times more per capita. This disparity shows why Nigeria struggles to address insecurity effectively while maintaining public safety and order.
The Way Forward
1. Decentralising Police Funding:
The 2025 budget provides about 70 billion Naira for Police Operations funds. This is grossly inadequate for the close to 15,000 police stations nationwide.
I suggest that States and LGAs should allocate minimum of ₦5 billion in 2025 to police operational costs, disbursed directly to police stations for uniforms, arms, amnunitions, vehicles, fuelling, energy costs and allowances while the federal government pays the salaries, pensions and build national policing infrastructure.
This transparent system of direct spend by states could generate an additional ₦180 billion to augment the federal budget.
In the coming weeks, the Athena Centre for Policy and Leadership will publish in-depth analyses of the 2025 budget proposals of the Federal and State governments.
To receive the in-depth, evidence-based and non-partisan analysis, subscribe to Athena Newsletters: https://lnk.athenacentre.org/406fGrh
N.B Some of these thoughts were shared, with some mistakes, in the Arise TV interview shared along with this post. I also spoke about other issues like Elite Secession and Leadership recruitment. https://youtu.be/u-OrU3A3Ah0
Osita Chidoka
4 January 2025
