Financial experts have raised significant doubts regarding the Federal Government’s claim that it achieved 85% performance in capital expenditure for the 2024 fiscal year. During the 2026 Macroeconomic Outlook event in Lagos on Thursday, the Minister of Finance, Wale Edun, stated that capital spending reached N11.1 trillion following the National Assembly’s decision to extend the budget implementation period through December 2025. Edun argued that the high execution rate was a result of prioritizing the completion of ongoing infrastructure projects over the initiation of new ones.
However, renowned Professor of Economics Akpan Ekpo described the government’s figures as misleading, pointing out that the real-world impact of such spending is not being felt by the populace. Ekpo noted that there is often a significant lag between disbursement and execution, adding that for the current 2025 budget, only 17% of capital expenditure has been released. He cautioned that the delay in funding essential services like healthcare and education continues to stifle growth, despite the high “aggregate performance” percentages reported by the finance ministry.
Echoing these concerns, economist Aliyu Ilias stressed that the lack of independent project verification makes the minister’s claims difficult to trust. Ilias highlighted the “mountain of debt” and unresolved payments to contractors as evidence that capital projects are often neglected in favor of debt servicing. He argued that if the performance were truly 85%, the quality of social infrastructure, such as roads and primary schools, would show visible improvement across the country—a reality that many Nigerians find inconsistent with their daily experiences.
Former Zenith Bank chief economist Marcel Okeke termed the current situation a “money illusion,” where naira depreciation and inflation have eroded the actual value of government spending. Okeke explained that with the cost of materials like cement rising sharply, the reported N11.1 trillion covers far less ground than it would have in previous years.
