America to Nigeria: Your budget books don’t add up

The United States has delivered a damning assessment of Nigeria’s financial governance. The US Department of State’s 2026 fiscal transparency report declared that Nigeria is not making significant progress on fiscal transparency, citing gaps in budget disclosure, expenditure reporting, public procurement and audit processes, according to Sahara Reporters.

The report found that while Nigeria published its enacted budget and end-of-year report online, it failed to release its executive budget proposal within a reasonable timeframe, and budget documents did not provide a complete picture of government revenues and expenditures. Actual revenues and expenditures also did not correspond to the approved budget.

Nigeria’s supreme audit institution was criticised for failing to meet international independence standards and not publishing substantive audit reports. Public procurement transparency was equally flagged, with the government failing to publish accessible information on contracts.

The US recommended six corrective steps: publishing the executive budget proposal online, providing complete revenue and expenditure disclosures, breaking down spending by executive office, aligning actual spending with approved budgets, strengthening audit institution independence, and publishing procurement contract information.