The Minister of Health, Prof. Muhammed Ali Pate, on Monday disclosed that the Ministry was unable to utilise its 2025 capital budget, having received only N36 million out of the N218 billion appropriated for the year, representing a mere 0.1 per cent release.
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Similarly, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Mrs. Jumoke Oduwole, lamented the proposed N2.72 billion capital allocation for her ministry in the 2026 budget, describing it as grossly inadequate to drive Nigeria’s industrialisation, trade expansion, and investment-attracting agenda.
Both ministers made the disclosures during separate budget defence sessions with committees of the National Assembly on Monday.
Pate made the disclosure during a 2026 budget defence session with the House of Representatives Committee on Healthcare Services.
“The sum of N218,024,056,657.81K was appropriated to the Ministry for regular capital projects/programmes of the Ministry’s Headquarters. From the sum of N218,024,056,657.81K allocated for Projects/Programmes in 2025, only the sum of N36,000,000.00K representing 0.1% has so far been released and not utilised due to the Bottom-Up Cash Plan policy by the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (OAGF),” Pate stated.
“It is to be noted that the 2025 Capital budget is an unusual budget year as implementation was delayed for unforeseen circumstances,” he added.
The minister stated that while the Ministry’s entire personnel budget was released and fully expended, the same could not be said of the capital component due largely to the bottom-up cash planning system operated by the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation.
He further informed lawmakers that the ministry was unable to access certain counterpart funds because of delays in the release of Nigeria’s counterpart contributions, adding that implementation of the 2025 capital budget was consequently stalled by unforeseen circumstances.
According to the minister, Nigeria’s health sector is guided by Vision 20:2020, the Medium-Term National Development Plan (NDP) 2021–2025, and the National Strategic Health Development Plan (NSHDP) II.
He said the overarching goal of the Nigerian Constitution and the National Health Act (NHAct) is to guarantee the right to health for all Nigerians, noting that the 2016 National Health Policy provides the implementation framework for translating the provisions of the National Health Act and the Sustainable Development Goals into improved health outcomes and wellbeing for citizens.
“The principles of Universal Health Coverage are central to the National Health Policy objective of strengthening Nigeria’s health system—particularly the Primary Health Care subsystem—to deliver quality, effective, efficient, equitable, accessible, affordable, acceptable and comprehensive health services to all Nigerians,” he said.
Pate disclosed that the policies and strategies underpinning the 2026 budget are derived from the 2026–2028 Medium-Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper (MTEF/FSP), which outlines the Federal Government’s development priorities.
In his remarks, the Chairman of the House Committee on Healthcare Services, Hon. Amos Gwamna Magaji, directed the Minister to furnish the Committee with all relevant documents relating to donor funds received by the Ministry and details of how such funds were utilised.
At the Senate, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Mrs. Jumoke Oduwole, lamented the proposed N2.72 billion capital allocation for her ministry in 2026 during a budget defence session with Senator Umar Sadiq (APC, Kwara North)-led Senate Committee on Trade and Investment.
“The proposed capital allocation of N2.72 billion will be a stretch in meeting the full demands of our programmes and capital projects,” Oduwole told lawmakers. “Given the scope of our responsibilities, we respectfully seek the committee’s support for targeted enhancement of our capital allocation to enable us to effectively deliver on our mandate.”
The minister argued that the amount was grossly inadequate to deliver the scale of programmes required to drive Nigeria’s industrialisation, trade expansion, and investment-attracting agenda.
Oduwole outlined the ministry’s achievements over the past two years, arguing that the results recorded so far justified increased capital support.
She disclosed that Nigeria recorded about $21 billion in capital importation in the first 10 months of 2025, compared to $12 billion in 2024 and under $4 billion in 2023.
She attributed the improvement to deliberate ministry interventions, including the development of over $5 billion in bankable investment projects, sector-focused deal rooms, and Nigeria’s first Domestic Investor Summit.
The minister noted that the ministry had also resolved more than 50 major investor bottlenecks and undertaken over 100 bilateral investment engagements with countries such as the United Kingdom, United States, United Arab Emirates, Brazil, and Japan.
She disclosed that sustained engagement under the Nigeria–UK Economic and Trade Partnership resulted in UK investors accounting for about 65 per cent of Nigeria’s foreign capital inflows in 2025.
On trade performance, Oduwole revealed that Nigeria recorded a trade surplus in 2025, with total trade value estimated at N113 trillion in the first three quarters of the year, while exports grew by 11 per cent year-on-year to approximately $6.1 billion, the highest in the country’s history.
The minister appealed to the National Assembly for a targeted increase in capital funding, stressing that without adequate resources, the ministry’s ability to support President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda and the push for a trillion-dollar economy would be severely constrained.
According to her, the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment is central to diversifying the economy away from oil, growing non-oil exports, stimulating domestic production, and attracting both local and foreign investment.
In his remarks, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Trade and Investment, Senator Umar Sadiq, acknowledged the ministry’s strategic importance to the administration’s economic vision, saying that achieving a trillion-dollar economy would be impossible without strong performance from the industry, trade, and investment sectors.
“We are all aware of the renewal agenda of Mr. President, which is essentially to ensure that we have a trillion-dollar economy,” he said.
He, however, emphasised that the National Assembly’s support would be tied to transparency, accountability, and measurable impact, adding that lawmakers were more interested in outcomes than rhetoric.
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