Photos: YouTube Screenshots\Wikimedia Commons
Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu presented a 47.9 trillion naira ($30 billion) budget for 2025 to Parliament on Wednesday.
The bill, Tinubu’s second as president, assumes a benchmark oil price of $75 per barrel and production of just over 2 million barrels per day — an output level some analysts say would be hard to achieve due to sabotage and aging infrastructure. Budgets in Africa’s top crude producer are anchored on oil sales which make up around 90% of foreign exchange earnings.
The budget also assumes inflation will fall from over 34% currently to 15% next year. It is an “optimistic forecast,” says Ibukun Omoyeni, an economist at Lagos-based Vetiva Capital. He believes inflation “may be much higher” than the government’s estimate and that a supplementary budget would need to be issued at some point.
Tinubu, who has largely stuck by a policy agenda that has sharply raised the cost of living during his tenure, said the latest budget was “ambitious but necessary” for the country’s future.
— Alexander Onukwue in Lagos
