President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has signed the Appropriation (Amendment) (No. 4) Bill, 2025, into law, extending the implementation of the 2025 budget by three months.
The extension moves the deadline from 30 September to 31 December 2026, giving Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) additional time to execute capital projects captured in the budget.
Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, disclosed this in a statement on Wednesday.
The amendment was passed by both the Senate and the House of Representatives on Tuesday, 29 September, before being transmitted to the President for assent.
According to the Presidency, the extension is intended to prevent the disruption of ongoing projects and ensure that funds already appropriated are fully utilised.
“The extension gives Ministries, Departments and Agencies more time to complete ongoing capital projects. It ensures that funds already appropriated are fully put to work for Nigerians, without disrupting critical programmes,” the statement said.
The President commended the leadership and members of the National Assembly for what he described as their prompt consideration of the amendment, saying the development reflected cooperation between the Executive and Legislature.
The latest extension is the fourth time the implementation period of the capital component of the 2025 budget has been extended.
The budget was originally scheduled to expire on 31 December 2025. The National Assembly subsequently extended its implementation to 31 March 2026, then to 30 June and later to 30 September.
The latest amendment means that projects and other capital expenditure under the 2025 budget can now continue until the end of December 2026.
The repeated extensions have revived concerns about Nigeria’s practice of operating overlapping budget cycles.
In October 2025, former Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, had told the Senate Committee on Finance that the government would work to end the practice of extending budget implementation beyond the fiscal year.
President Tinubu also pledged in December 2025, while presenting the 2026 budget to the National Assembly, that his administration would end overlapping budget cycles.
“We’re terminating the habit of running three budgets in one flow. 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,” the President said.
While seeking the latest extension, the government argued that additional time was required to complete ongoing projects and ensure that already appropriated funds were not left unused.
The Senate Leader, Opeyemi Bamidele, said the extension would provide an administrative window for the completion of funded capital projects and other critical national projects already at advanced stages.
He also said it would help sustain economic activity, support local contractors and improve the utilisation of released funds.
The House of Representatives similarly said the extension was necessary because the capital component of the 2025 budget had not been fully implemented due to economic difficulties.
With the President’s assent, federal MDAs now have until 31 December 2026, to implement the affected capital allocations.
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