FULL TEXT of Speaker, Tajudeen Abbas’ Remarks at the 2026 Budget Presentation
CLOSING REMARKS AND VOTE OF THANKS BY THE SPEAKER, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, AT THE JOINT SITTING OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY ON THE PRESENTATION OF THE 2026 APPROPRIATION BILL, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, NATIONAL ASSEMBLY, FRIDAY, 19TH DECEMBER 2025.
[Protocols]
On behalf of the National Assembly. I express our profound appreciation to His Excellency, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, for personally honouring this Joint Sitting with the presentation of the 2026 Appropriation Bill.
This occasion represents democracy at its strongest. Mr President, your presence here once again affirms your abiding faith in democratic institutions and your conviction that sustainable national renewal is achieved through partnership rather than proclamation.
As we receive the 2026 Budget, it is both appropriate and necessary to reflect briefly on the fiscal year now drawing to a close.
The story of 2025 is one of regained stability, renewed confidence, and steady progress. It is the story of an economy that has weathered a period of adjustment and is now firmly repositioning itself for sustained expansion.
At the same time, 2025 also offered important lessons. The year unfolded against the backdrop of challenging global conditions and fiscal headwinds. Some budget assumptions, particularly regarding crude oil prices and exchange rates, proved overly optimistic amid volatility in the international oil market. The sharp fluctuations in crude prices and external shocks tested projections and underscored the vulnerability of oil-dependent revenues.
Mr. President. Rather than weakening the reform agenda, these challenges strengthened it. They reinforced the urgency of realism in budgeting. discipline in execution, and diversification in revenue planning. They sharpened our collective understanding that credible budgets must be built on prudent assumptions and resilient frameworks.
The gains of 2025 must be understood not as an end in themselves, but as the foundation for a more deliberate, realistic, and results-oriented 2026 Budget. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, Nigeria recorded positive growth throughout the year, with real GDP growth approaching 4%, placing the country among the stronger-performing large economies in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Mr. President, Distinguished Colleagues. Over recent months, inflationary pressures have significantly eased. Following the rebasing of the Consumer Price Index, headline inflation has trended downwards, while food inflation has decreased due to improved agricultural output, targeted interventions, and more stable supply chains. External indicators have also strengthened. Central Bank data confirms improved foreign exchange reserves, resilient remittance inflows, rising export receipts, and greater coherence in the foreign exchange market. The World Bank and the IMF recognise these developments as evidence of restored macroeconomic credibility and more solid foundations for medium-term growth.
Mr. Present, Distinguished Colleagues. The challenge before us now is not whether reform is working, but how decisively its benefits can be consolidated and broadened.
If 2025 was a year of adjustment and learning, 2026 must be a year of fulfilment. Growth must increasingly translate into jobs, higher incomes, and expanded opportunity. Fiscal discipline must continue to deliver fairness, efficiency. and visible impact. Above all, the 2026 Budget must be grounded in credible targets, realistic assumptions, and disciplined implementation.
This is why there is strong optimism across this chamber that 2026 will be different, not only in intent but in outcomes. The National Assembly receives the 2026 Appropriation Bill with confidence that the lessons of 2025 have been fully internalised, and that this budget is designed to translate reform into tangible progress for Nigerians.
Growth must increasingly translate into jobs, higher incomes, and expanded opportunity. Fiscal discipline must continue to deliver fairness, efficiency, and visible impact. And national policy must remain firmly anchored in coherence, predictability, and institutional order.
Mr President, one of the most reassuring signals of reform maturity in your approach to the 2026 Budget is your clear directive that Nigeria must operate with one budget and one fiscal framework, along with your clear determination to deepen fiscal realism and restore order to the budgeting process.
Your insistence that there should be no parallel budgets, no multiple spending windows, and no fragmented fiscal authorities speaks to discipline, clarity, and respect for due process. It restores order to public finance and ensures that every Naira appropriated by this Parliament aligns with national priorities.
The National Assembly welcomes this stance. It reinforces confidence that the 2026 Budget is not merely expansive, but orderly, not merely ambitious, but disciplined.
This approach reassures the National Assembly that the 2026 Budget is not only ambitious but also achievable, not only expansive but also grounded, and designed for precise implementation rather than approximation.
Mr. President. Security is not only a constitutional responsibility; it is the essential foundation of development. Security underpins food production, price stability, investment confidence, and social cohesion.
Your administration’s national emergency posture on security reflects clarity of purpose and decisiveness of leadership. It is backed by concrete commitments, including expanded recruitment into the security services, enhanced training capacity, improved welfare, redeployment to priority theatres, strengthened forest and territorial security, and improved intelligence coordination.
The 2026 Budget reflects this prioritisation, and rightly so.
When properly funded, well coordinated, and transparently implemented, security expenditure is not just a cost. It is an investment in economic growth and development.
For this reason, security deserves prominent and sustained attention in the 2026 Budget and beyond. The National Assembly is firmly committed to ensuring that resources allocated to security translate into measurable, lasting improvements in safety across the federation.
Mr. President. Distinguished Colleagues. The 2026 fiscal year is also significant for the implementation of new tax laws. These reforms represent a major step in state-building. They broaden the tax base, enhance equity, simplify compliance, reduce leakages, and strengthen non-oil revenues.
With these reforms, the 2026 Budget is anchored in sustainable revenue rather than deferred obligations. It finances progress responsibly. A fair and efficient tax system underpins security funding, sustains social services, and guarantees the timely delivery of constituency projects.
On behalf of the National Assembly, I offer this assurance. We will consider the 2026 Appropriation Bill with urgency, diligence, and patriotism. We will support reform that strengthens the national interest, scrutinise spending to ensure accountability, and insist that every Naira budgeted by Mr President delivers value to the Nigerian people.
To Nigerians watching, the message of this budget is clear. Stability has been restored. Confidence has been rebuilt. Fiscal order has been strengthened. And the foundations for shared prosperity are firmly in place.
In closing, I thank His Excellency, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, for his leadership, foresight, and abiding trust in democratic institutions. I extend special appreciation to the President of the Senate, Distinguished Senator Godswill Akpabio, GCON-the Uncommon Senate President-for his partnership, statesmanship, and leadership.
I thank all Distinguished Senators and Honourable Members of the House of Representatives for your dedication, sacrifice, and patriotism in service to our nation. I also extend my gratitude to everyone across government and society who contributes daily to governance and national service.
Thank you.
May God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
