By Lillian Okenwa
A national budget is often described as a financial document. It is much more than that. It is one of the clearest expressions of how a government understands its constitutional responsibilities. Every appropriation is expected to answer two simple questions: What should public money be spent on, and which public institution is legally responsible for spending it?
The debate that erupted after the 2026 Appropriation Act earmarked ₦8.05 billion for the construction, renovation and equipping of churches and mosques has largely been framed as a contest between religion and development. It is an understandable reaction in a country grappling with rising poverty, strained hospitals, struggling schools, worsening insecurity and a cost-of-living crisis that has pushed millions of families to the edge.
But that debate, important as it is, may not even be the central issue.
As this series has shown, the allocations for religious projects do not stand alone. They form part of a broader pattern in which public agencies appear to be executing projects that bear little relationship to the laws establishing them. Research institutes are allocated funds to build royal palaces. Scientific agencies are asked to furnish traditional institutions. Agricultural colleges are assigned community infrastructure. Arbitration bodies become channels for projects involving religious organisations. Across the budget, statutory boundaries appear increasingly difficult to identify.
Read Also: THE ₦8 BILLION QUESTION (II): From churches to palaces, what does Nigeria’s budget really value?
Read Also: THE ₦8 BILLION QUESTION: Churches, Mosques… and a nation in crisis
Whether every allocation can ultimately be justified is a question for the relevant authorities. The more fundamental question is whether the architecture of public finance is gradually drifting away from the constitutional principles that are supposed to govern it.
The debate cannot end with whether churches, mosques or palaces deserve public support. The more fundamental issue is whether Nigeria’s budgetary process can lawfully assign public money to purposes that fall outside the statutory responsibilities of the agencies receiving those allocations.
The Constitution empowers the National Assembly to approve expenditure, but that power is exercised within a legal framework. Every Ministry, Department and Agency exists because an Act of Parliament created it, defining its mandate and the public purposes for which it may spend taxpayers’ money. An appropriation is therefore expected to finance those legally assigned functions, not to create entirely new ones by legislative insertion.
When a budget repeatedly assigns projects to institutions that were neither created nor equipped to undertake them, the issue is no longer simply one of accounting. It raises questions about administrative legality, institutional accountability and fidelity to the constitutional design of government.
This is why the controversy surrounding the 2026 budget cannot be reduced to arguments over whether churches deserve support or whether traditional rulers should have modern palaces. Religious institutions play significant roles in education, humanitarian services and community development. Traditional institutions continue to occupy important cultural and social positions in many parts of Nigeria. Those facts are not in dispute.
A more fundamental question therefore emerges. Can an annual appropriation law transform the legal responsibilities of a government agency? Ministries, Departments and Agencies are creations of statute, not of the budget. Their authority flows from their establishing Acts, which define both their functions and the limits within which they may lawfully expend public funds.
A research institute established to advance science cannot become a construction agency merely because an appropriation line says so. A health institution does not automatically acquire the mandate to renovate palaces because funds have been inserted into its capital budget. An agricultural college cannot lawfully become a vehicle for executing constituency projects unrelated to agricultural education simply because the projects appear in an Appropriation Act.
Appropriation authorises expenditure; it does not rewrite the statutes establishing public institutions.
That constitutional principle has received little public attention during the current controversy, yet it may be the most consequential issue raised by the 2026 budget.
When Mandates Become Suggestions
Every public institution exists for a reason. The National Board for Technical Education regulates technical education. The Nigerian Building and Road Research Institute conducts research into construction technologies and building materials. The National Institute for Cancer Research and Treatment exists to coordinate cancer research and treatment. The Industrial Arbitration Panel resolves trade disputes. Their statutory mandates are neither accidental nor interchangeable.
Those mandates exist to ensure competence, accountability and clarity in government. Citizens know which institution is responsible for which function. Parliament knows where to direct oversight. Auditors know what standards to apply. The public knows who should answer when projects fail.
Once those boundaries become blurred, accountability begins to blur with them.
If a cancer research institute is allocated funds to renovate district heads’ palaces, who determines whether the project represents value for money? If an agricultural institution builds community infrastructure, which performance indicators should the National Assembly apply during oversight? If an arbitration panel procures equipment for religious organisations, under what statutory authority is its performance to be measured?
These are not merely administrative curiosities. They go to the heart of responsible government. A constitutional democracy depends not only on honest spending but on lawful spending. Public institutions are expected to act within the powers granted to them by law. That principle protects citizens against arbitrary government, prevents institutional confusion and ensures that specialised agencies remain focused on the public purposes for which they were created.
The framers of the Constitution understood that public finance is inseparable from public accountability. Money follows responsibility. Responsibility follows law.
When that sequence is reversed, institutions gradually cease to be defined by their legal mandates and begin to be defined instead by whatever projects happen to appear in the annual budget.
And that is where constitutional drift begins.
