The Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, Senator Abubakar Bagudu, has called for a fundamental scaling up of the size of Nigeria’s national budget, arguing that the country cannot achieve its ambition of becoming a $1 trillion economy while operating one of the smallest budgets among the world’s most populous nations.

Speaking yesterday in Abuja at the 2026 Capacity-building Workshop of the Senate Press Corps, Bagudu said Nigeria must stop preparing budgets merely according to available resources and begin to consider what it would take to achieve its development aspirations.

The workshop, themed: “Leveraging Legislative Oversight and Media Collaboration to Safeguard the National Budget from Unlawful Insertions”, brought together lawmakers, budget experts, civil society advocates and journalists.

“Perhaps the starting point for this discussion should be: What should the national budget be? Because without starting from there, maybe we will not reach the right conclusion,” he said. He added: “I don’t have one definitive answer, but I would say that of the 10 most populous countries in the world, Nigeria has the smallest national budget.”

Bagudu tied the debate to President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda and Agenda 2050, the long-term framework developed through a whole-of-society approach.

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