Nigeria’s civic tech group, BudgIT, has accused lawmakers of padding the 2025 budget with over 11,000 suspicious projects worth N6.93 trillion — a figure that could have slashed the country’s record-high deficit by nearly 50 percent if properly reallocated.

In a detailed report released Tuesday, BudgIT said what began years ago as isolated budget irregularities has now morphed into an “entrenched culture of exploitation and abuse” at the National Assembly.

According to the group, 11,122 projects were inserted into the 2025 appropriation bill, which President Bola Tinubu signed into law on February 28. The spending plan, totaling N54.99 trillion, includes a projected deficit of N14.54 trillion. If the N6.93 trillion allegedly padded into the budget had been removed or redirected toward critical development projects, the gap would have been significantly reduced.

The new fiscal plan nearly doubles the size of last year’s N27.5 trillion budget, a 99.96 percent jump, and has been criticized for lacking transparency and realism amid a worsening economic crisis.

N2.29 Trillion for 238 ‘Unjustified’ Mega Projects

BudgIT’s analysis shows that 238 projects, each valued at over N5 billion, were inserted into the 2025 budget with what the group described as “little to no justification.” The total cost of these items alone stands at N2.29 trillion.

Another 984 projects worth N1.71 trillion and 1,119 projects ranging between N500 million and N1 billion, totaling N641.38 billion, were also flagged as arbitrary insertions. The organization said these additions raise serious concerns about their relevance to national priorities.

Far from promoting development, BudgIT said, “these insertions appear tailored to satisfy narrow political interests and personal gains.”

It said over 3,500 of the projects, worth about N653.19 billion, were funneled into federal constituencies, while 1,972 projects valued at N444.04 billion were allocated to senatorial districts.

Among the most jarring examples:

• 1,477 streetlight projects costing N393.29 billion
• 538 borehole projects valued at N114.53 billion
• 2,122 ICT projects worth N505.79 billion
• N6.74 billion earmarked for “empowerment of traditional rulers”
• Ministry of Agriculture’s Budget Bloated Nearly 8x

One of the biggest victims of these manipulations is the Ministry of Agriculture, whose capital allocation jumped from N242.5 billion to N1.95 trillion after being forced to absorb 4,371 projects worth N1.72 trillion.

Similarly, the Ministries of Science and Technology and Budget and Economic Planning saw their budgets inflated by N994.98 billion and N1.1 trillion, respectively, not for actual development programs, but to accommodate insertions.

BudgIT also spotlighted how institutions with no technical mandate or capacity to execute infrastructure projects were turned into project warehouses for politically influenced contracts.

“Even more concerning is the targeted misuse of agencies like the Nigerian Building and Road Research Institute (Lagos) and the Federal Cooperative College, Oji River, as dumping grounds for politically motivated projects.

“These agencies lack the technical capacity to execute such projects, leading to rampant underperformance and waste,” BudgIT said.

The Cooperative College, for instance, was assigned:

• N3 billion for utility vehicles for farmers
• N1.5 billion for rural electrification in Rivers State
• N1 billion for solar-powered streetlights in Enugu State

“These are examples of agencies operating outside their mandates, managing projects unrelated to their statutory functions, and adding zero value to national development,” the group said.

Loud Silence from the Presidency

Despite the magnitude of the findings, BudgIT said the presidency has remained “conspicuously silent.” Multiple letters and inquiries sent to the executive and key government institutions were ignored.

BudgIT is urging President Tinubu to demonstrate stronger executive leadership and initiate urgent reforms that realign the budget process with the national development plan (2021–2025). It also wants the Attorney General to seek a Supreme Court interpretation of the extent of the National Assembly’s appropriation powers, particularly its ability to insert projects without the executive’s approval.

“We hope the EFCC and ICPC will track these projects to ensure Nigeria gets value for money,” the group said, calling on civil society, the media, and citizens to demand reform. “This is not just about financial mismanagement. It is a matter of justice, equity, and the future of accountable governance.”

Alarming But Not Surprising

While the figures are alarming, they are not surprising. This is consistent with Nigeria’s long and troubling history of corruption, which is notable beyond budgetary manipulation. In other areas, public officeholders have been caught embezzling funds designated for national development projects.

For instance, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development on Tuesday announced that it had officially received a 753-unit housing estate from the EFCC, which recovered the asset from Godwin Emefiele, the embattled former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria.

The estate, located in Abuja, was handed over during a formal ceremony at the ministry’s headquarters in Mabushi. According to ministry spokesperson Salisu Haiba, Housing Minister Ahmed Dangiwa lauded the anti-graft agency for its effort in retrieving the asset.

Experts have said the recovered estate, if replicated across all 36 states, could significantly alleviate Nigeria’s severe housing deficit. As of 2023, the country was estimated to require at least 28 million housing units to meet demand, according to data from Intelpoint.

This figure far exceeds the World Bank’s earlier projection in 2021, which predicted that Nigeria’s housing deficit would hit 20 million by 2030. That forecast was surpassed seven years ahead of schedule, highlighting the scale of the crisis and the failure of past administrations to implement adequate policy responses.

Anti-graft advocates say the recovery of Emefiele’s estate, while symbolically important, underscores the missed opportunities from years of looted public resources.

Chinese tech giant Baidu on Wednesday expressed confidence that U.S. semiconductor export restrictions would not derail its artificial intelligence ambitions, even as the country’s tech sector grapples with a tightening blockade on access to advanced American chips.

The company’s statement came alongside strong first-quarter financial results, boosted by surging revenue from its AI cloud business and supported by a broader nationalistic push for technological self-reliance.

Vice President Shen Dou told analysts during a post-earnings call that Baidu’s AI development would continue on the back of “domestically developed chips and increasingly efficient homegrown software,” which he described as the foundation of long-term innovation in China’s AI ecosystem. The comments marked a direct response to the latest round of U.S. export controls, which came into effect last month and effectively blocked Nvidia’s H20 chips—an advanced AI chip tailored for the Chinese market.

Baidu’s confidence is widely seen as part of a broader nationalistic tech narrative being championed by Beijing, which has in recent years doubled down on homegrown innovation amid escalating geopolitical tension with Washington. This “tech self-reliance” drive has intensified since 2019, when Chinese telecom and electronics giant Huawei was placed on a U.S. trade blacklist that cut off its access to American technology.

While many expected the move would cripple Huawei’s operations, the company responded with surprising resilience, developing its own HarmonyOS operating system and launching 5G-capable smartphones powered by its in-house Kirin chips—despite Washington’s curbs on chipmaking tools.

That resilience appears to have served as a model for other Chinese firms, including Baidu, as they navigate similar restrictions. The sense of urgency to innovate without reliance on foreign technology has led to aggressive investments in AI, semiconductors, and cloud infrastructure.

Adding to this momentum, many Chinese companies seem to have drawn renewed confidence from the recent breakthroughs of DeepSeek, a homegrown AI startup that stunned industry observers earlier this year with the performance of its large language model, DeepSeek-R1. The model reportedly surpassed several U.S.-backed models in key benchmarks, signaling that China’s AI sector could potentially close the gap with Western counterparts.

The DeepSeek breakthrough—achieved without access to Nvidia’s most advanced chips—has reinforced the belief that with sufficient talent, computational infrastructure, and focused policy support, Chinese firms can innovate around U.S. sanctions. It’s this belief that now underpins Baidu’s messaging, as the company aggressively expands its AI offerings and reduces dependence on its traditional advertising business.

In the first quarter of 2025, Baidu reported total revenue of 32.45 billion yuan ($4.50 billion), a 3% year-on-year increase that exceeded the average analyst estimate of 30.9 billion yuan, according to data from LSEG. While revenue from its online marketing segment—the company’s former core—fell 6% to 17.31 billion yuan, non-marketing revenue surged 40% to 9.4 billion yuan, driven primarily by growth in its AI-powered cloud services.

Net profit came in at 21.59 yuan per American Depositary Share (ADS), up from 14.91 yuan a year earlier, demonstrating stronger operational efficiency despite regulatory and competitive pressures.

Baidu’s strategic shift toward AI has been in motion since early 2023, when the company was among the first in China to launch a chatbot following OpenAI’s release of ChatGPT. Its Ernie large language model has undergone multiple iterations—most recently the rollout of Ernie X1 and Ernie 4.5 in March 2025, both of which were upgraded to “Turbo” versions the following month.

Despite being an early mover, Baidu now faces stiff competition from firms like DeepSeek, which has challenged the dominance of established players. In response, Baidu eliminated subscription fees for its premium chatbot services in April, an aggressive move that analysts see as part of a broader strategy to retain market share in a fast-evolving AI landscape.

On the hardware side, Baidu has leaned heavily on its own Kunlun chip line to reduce exposure to Western supply chains. CEO Robin Li recently revealed that the company has deployed a cluster of 30,000 third-generation P800 Kunlun chips—developed entirely in-house—to support the training of models comparable in scale and complexity to those developed by DeepSeek.

Even so, the market reaction was subdued. Baidu’s U.S.-listed shares edged down 0.3% in morning trading, reflecting lingering investor concerns about geopolitical uncertainty and rising competition within China’s AI sector.

However, Baidu’s optimism appears deeply rooted in the shifting dynamics of China’s tech industry, where U.S. pressure has catalyzed a wave of domestic innovation. With government support, growing semiconductor capabilities, and an expanding pool of AI talent, China’s tech giants are increasingly signaling that they are prepared to weather—and possibly thrive—under the shadow of U.S. sanctions.