President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has signed the Appropriation (Amendment) (No. 4) Bill, 2025 into law, extending the implementation of the capital component of the 2025 federal budget for another three months, from September 30 to December 31, 2026.
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The latest amendment means ministries, departments and agencies will continue executing projects and spending capital allocations contained in the 2025 budget until the end of 2026, even as implementation of the 2026 budget is also ongoing.
The Presidency announced Tinubu’s assent in a statement issued on Wednesday by his Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga. The President signed the amendment barely 24 hours after both chambers of the National Assembly passed it on Tuesday, September 29.
According to the Presidency, the additional three months are intended to give government agencies enough time to finish projects for which money has already been appropriated and to prevent ongoing programmes from being disrupted simply because the previous deadline had expired.
“The extension gives Ministries, Departments and Agencies more time to complete ongoing capital projects,” Onanuga said.
“It ensures that funds already appropriated are fully put to work for Nigerians, without disrupting critical programmes.”
Tinubu also commended the leadership and members of the National Assembly for quickly considering and passing the amendment, describing the process as another indication of cooperation between the executive and legislative arms of government.
But the new deadline also marks the fourth extension of the capital component of the 2025 budget, stretching a fiscal plan originally expected to close on December 31, 2025, through the whole of 2026.
The first adjustment moved the deadline from December 31, 2025, to March 31, 2026. When that period elapsed, implementation was extended again to June 30. A third extension subsequently moved the deadline to September 30, before the latest amendment pushed it to December 31.
The government has consistently said the extensions are needed to ensure that already funded capital projects are not abandoned midway and that public funds released for infrastructure and other development projects are properly utilised.
When lawmakers considered the latest amendment, Senate Leader Opeyemi Bamidele said procurement procedures, mobilisation of contractors, certification of completed work and payment processes could sometimes make it difficult to finish capital projects within the existing timetable.
He said the additional window would enable MDAs to complete projects for which funds had already been released, support contractors and improve overall budget performance. Bamidele also said the amendment was not intended to introduce fresh projects into the 2025 budget.
The repeated extensions, however, mean the Federal Government has not yet achieved an earlier target set by Tinubu himself to end the practice of running overlapping budgets.
While presenting the 2026 Appropriation Bill to a joint session of the National Assembly in December 2025, Tinubu described the simultaneous implementation of multiple budgets as a problem that had weakened fiscal discipline and complicated government planning.
At the time, he told lawmakers that outstanding capital liabilities from previous budgets would be funded and closed by March 31, 2026.
“We are terminating the habit of running three budgets in one inflow,” Tinubu said.
“By March 31, 2026, all capital liabilities from previous years will be fully funded and closed. From April, Nigeria will operate on a single budget backed by a single revenue cycle no overlaps, no excuses, no rollovers.”
That deadline has since passed, and the latest law means the 2025 capital budget will now remain alive until the final day of 2026.
The Federal Government had already extended the budget from March to June when Tinubu signed the 2026 Appropriation Act in April. At that time, the Presidency said the extension was necessary to ensure the full utilisation of funds allocated to infrastructure and other projects already at advanced stages.
The latest three-month extension follows the same reasoning.
For contractors and communities waiting for roads, hospitals, schools and other projects contained in the 2025 budget, the amendment gives agencies additional time to complete work rather than allowing the allocations to lapse at the end of September.
For fiscal management, however, it means Nigeria will continue operating with capital spending tied to more than one budgetary year until December.
The practice has attracted scrutiny from lawmakers and economic analysts over concerns about transparency, planning and the difficulty of assessing the actual performance of an annual budget when its implementation stretches well beyond the year for which it was approved. Some analysts have nevertheless argued that allowing already funded projects to reach completion can be preferable to abandoning them simply to meet a calendar deadline.
The government’s position remains that the present extension is specifically about completing existing capital projects and using funds that have already been appropriated, rather than creating another round of spending commitments.
The President’s assent therefore gives MDAs until December 31, 2026, to execute the outstanding capital component of the 2025 fiscal plan.
Barring another amendment, that date will finally close a budget implementation cycle that began in 2025 and has now been extended four times.
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