H1: 2025 Reality Check Shows Budget Living on Borrowed Time with Debt Running Hot

The 2025 approved budget set a clear half-year benchmark, but actual performance by mid-year shows a widening disconnect between plans and reality.

Aggregate federal government revenue was budgeted at N48.97 trillion for the year, translating to a half-year target of N24.48 trillion. Actual collections at mid-year stood at about N20.44 trillion.

That is a shortfall of roughly N4 trillion against the half-year expectation, a gap that immediately frames the rest of the fiscal story.

Independent revenue was expected to deliver N7.99 trillion for the year, with a half-year benchmark of N3.99 trillion.

Actual performance came in at approximately N3.58 trillion. While this is not a collapse, it underlines a recurring problem: independent revenue is still underperforming relative to its strategic importance in the budget. Oil revenue, budgeted at N6.08 trillion annually and N3.04 trillion for half-year, delivered about N2.94 trillion. That is closer to target, but still marginally behind, and offers little buffer for the broader revenue weakness.

Expenditure tells a very different story. Total expenditure was approved at N34.35 trillion, with a half-year benchmark of N17.18 trillion. Actual spending by midyear reached approximately N16.22 trillion. On the surface, this looks controlled, but the composition of that spending raises red flags.

Recurrent non-debt expenditure alone was budgeted at N13.99 trillion for the year, with a half-year allocation of N6.99 trillion. Actual spending hit about N6.23 trillion, showing that recurrent costs are moving almost automatically toward their ceiling.