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Claim: Social media users, here (archived here) and here (archived here), have claimed that the National Assembly has inserted projects to spend N266 million each to erect 1,477 units of streetlights across their constituencies and senatorial districts. This follows a similar X-post claim made by BudgIT, a civic society organisation.
Verdict: Misleading. Reviewing the 2025 budget and BudgIT’s infographic and conversations with a BudgIT development researcher confirm that the claims are misleading.
Full Text
On February 13, 2025, the National Assembly (NASS) passed a N54.99 trillion 2025 budget, representing a 99.96% increase from the N27.5 trillion 2024 budget. This is the biggest jump in a budget and the highest the federal government’s budget has ever been.
The president earlier proposed N49.7 trillion, but when the final figure was approved, many Nigerians and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) began asking questions about the NASS’s insertions.
One of such CSOs was BudgIT Nigeria. On May 26, 2025, BudgIT shared an infographic (archived here) on X detailing how the National Assembly incorporated streetlight projects worth N393.29 billion into the 2025 Federal Government budget.
In its bid to check the activities of the NASS, it detailed how there were 3,573 insertions for Federal Constituencies represented by House of Representatives members, and 1,972 insertions made for senatorial districts where senators hail from. This totals a combined 5,545 insertions. Of this number, 1,477 projects included streetlights.
DUBAWA checked the infographic and observed that BudgIT listed the number of projects under “Frequency” to show how many times the budget mentions them and “Amount (NGN)” to show their total cost.
However, part of Budgit’s caption read, “With the amount of ‘streetlights’ in this 2025 budget, Nigeria is supposed to be the Light of the World.
“I,477 streetlights for N393.29 billion. That’s N266 million per light. Are we installing the sun?”
As of June 5, 2025, this post had been viewed over 274,000 times, liked by more than 2,000 accounts, and shared over 2,600 times.
Since this publication, several social media users have claimed the National Assembly inserted 1,477 units of streetlights into the budget at N266.25 million per unit.
On the day DUBAWA captured the data of BudgIT’s post interactions, @Pinovibes, a blogger and publisher of Gossipmill, made an X post calling for the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to probe the budget.
His post reads, “How can President [Bola] Tinubu’s administration budget N393.2 billion for a mere 1,477 streetlights, a whopping N266.25 million for just one streetlight pole. This money alone is enough to build a massive streetlight factory and put a permanent end to the streetlight problem all over Nigeria.”
Within five hours, his post had been viewed over 644,000 times, liked by more than 13,000 accounts, and reposted over 5,200 times.
The post by Trending Explained reads, “Just In: Nigerian Government budgets N266.25 million for one streetlight, to purchase 1,477 streetlights.”
As of June 5, 2025, this post had been viewed over 315,000 times, liked by more than 2,500 accounts, and reposted by over 2,200 accounts.
Several Nigerians have interpreted the infographic and the budget to allege that the legislature intends to pay exorbitant amounts for streetlights that should cost significantly less, which has generated buzz on social media.
Mystery of Insertions
Every year, lawmakers insert projects into the appropriation bill before it becomes an Act. These insertions are often included in ministries’ budgets without regard for their qualifications to execute such projects.
In 2003, during President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration, the president introduced an annual N100 billion Zonal Intervention Fund to help lawmakers bring governance closer to the people. The legislature and executive agreed to collaborate and include projects in the budgets of the Office of the Special Adviser on Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
All 109 senators and 360 representatives receive allocations based on their rank and office. Of this N100 billion, the Senate allocates N40 billion, while the House of Representatives allocates N60 billion.
Principal officers in both houses get to split N20 billion per house, while the remaining N20 billion for the Senate is shared amongst senators, and N40 billion is shared amongst representatives.
None of this money goes directly into the pockets of the lawmakers. They must nominate projects to be executed in their constituencies or senatorial districts, while the MDAs select suitable contractors to carry them out.
In April 2022, the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) issued a report claiming that the National Assembly members were diverting funds for constituency projects.
They claimed that senators diverted money meant for their senatorial districts to non-existent projects and described vague wording of projects as an illegality.
“The size, number and types of Zonal Intervention Projects (ZIP) domiciled in Small and Medium Enterprise Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) and Border Communities Development Agency (BCDA), for instance, have turned them into conduits for, and means of abuse of constituency projects and therefore vulnerable to corruption,” the report reads.
In line with this practice, the NASS included vague wording in the 2025 budget, making it difficult to ascertain the number of streetlights they budgeted for and the cost of each one.
Verification
DUBAWA reviewed the 2025 Appropriation Act for the number of streetlight insertions in federal constituencies and senatorial districts, representing insertions made by members of the House of Representatives and senators, respectively.
The budget mentions streetlights as ‘street light’ (1,655 times), ‘street lights’ (1,118 times), ‘streetlight’ (336 times), ‘streetlights’ (225 times), ‘street lighting’ (38 times), and ‘street lightings’ (3 times).
Considering that searches for each singular form of the term include results for plural forms, the total number of mentions of street lights would be 2,029 (including mentions of street light, streetlight, and street lighting).
However, not all mentions are for constituency project insertions. To find each insertion, one would have to insert the keyword and see how many times it appears, then check each mention one after the other to see how many refer to streetlights for either constituencies or senatorial districts.
DUBAWA spoke with Vahyala Kwaga, a public finance analyst at BudgIT, to share their methodology to reach their conclusion. Kwaga said the CSO used an Excel spreadsheet copy of the budget to search for keywords and derived the figure from the line items for insertions in the ministries’ budgets.
He said, “We use Excel and the word search function. We search for terms or phrases like ‘in some selected areas of X Constituency’ or ‘in X Senatorial zone,’ or we simply search for words like ‘Empowerment,’ ‘Streetlights,’ or ‘Boreholes,’ etc.
“We also use an Excel version of the budget itself. You can’t carry out this analysis with the version that the budget office of the federation uploads. What they share is a picture of a PDF of the printed version of the budget.”
However, checks in the published copies for some of the keywords BudgIT looked for showed constituency projects with no specified number of streetlights.
Highlighted in blue is a line item marked ‘ERGP20256083 for the ‘Supply and installation of solar streetlights in various locations to enhance security for rural farmers in Kaltungo/Shongom Federal Constituency, Gombe State.’ This line item, inserted in the State House Headquarters’ budget, costs N200 million. Simon Karu is the House of Representatives member representing this constituency.
The line item does not mention a specific number of streetlights, but being in plural means there would be more than one streetlight. The N200 million figure is lower than the circulated N266 million figure per streetlight.
Similarly, a N200 million budget has been allocated for the supply and installation of streetlights in Aliero/Gwandu/Jega Federal Constituency, Kebbi State. Mansur Jega is the lawmaker representing this constituency.
The same project is listed for N300 million in the Ifo/Ewekoro constituency, Ogun State, represented by Ibrahim Isiaka, and the exact cost is also listed in the Saki East/Saki West/Atisbo constituency in Oyo State, represented by Olajide Olatubosun.
All three projects are listed as line items in the budget of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security.
The four mentioned line items cost a combined N1 billion, but none of the descriptions state how many streetlights the money would purchase, contrary to the claim that each streetlight would cost at least N266 million.
DUBAWA found one line item that mentions 50 solar-powered streetlights in Gubio LGA, Borno State. For N20 million, each streetlight would cost a minimum of N400,000. This, however, is not one of the projects the NASS inserted.
Budget line item showing provision for 50 solar-powered streetlights in Borno State. Source: 2025 Appropriation Act.
The Ministry of Education has a similar provision for streetlights. Their budget has N29,980,000 for 30 streetlights, representing less than N1 million per streetlight.
On June 9, 2025, Akin Alabi, the House of Representatives’ Works Committee Chairperson, posted an explainer on the budget on X.
He said, “Here is how it works. A member wants solar street lights in his/her constituency. He ‘lobbies’ for his people and gets approval for N200m worth. He sits down and writes the installation of Solar Street Lights in Mr Latin Community for N200m. That is one insertion.
“Months later, when the Ministry or Agency wants to execute, contractors will bid. Whoever wins gets a Bill of Quantity. That BOQ will contain the number of poles, the watts, quality, etc, that they expect. Let’s say they agree on 150 poles. Then they factor taxes and profits for contractors.”
Kwaga confirmed that the facts were misinterpreted, and the CSO intended to communicate that 1,477 line items mentioned projects aimed at installing streetlights, not just 1,477 streetlights. He explained that their investigation began with an analysis of the proposed budget and the approved budget (the version sent to the President for his assent or the version signed into law by the President).
“We look at the total budget size following the National Assembly’s review and observe an increase. We then look at the various capital expenditure line items, do a word and phrase search (such as ‘in some selected areas of X Constituency’ or ‘in X Senatorial zone.’ Or we search for words like ‘Empowerment,’ ‘Streetlights,’ or ‘Boreholes,’ etc.) and notice that these line items were not there in the budget proposal.
“So, it is obvious they were inserted by the National Assembly. The search was generally restricted to word and phrase matches, and in this case, we observed insertions valued at N6.93 trillion (this does not include the increase in recurrent expenditure by the National Assembly, which is a separate issue).
“For instance, we observed the insertion of 1,477 streetlight projects, valued at N393.29 billion. It is absurd that a Federal Legislature would concern itself with streetlights; such should be the preserve of the Local Government. In any case, the 4th Schedule to the Constitution provides for the scope of the federal government, the states, and the local government. It is our position that such projects fall under the scope of the Local Government.”
Conclusion
From the information gathered by DUBAWA, the claim that the National Assembly’s N393.29 billion insertion was for only 1,477 streetlights is misleading. As gathered from Alabi, BudgIT, and the budget document, the insertions do not represent N266 million per streetlight, but rather several different sums for an unspecified number of streetlights. This discrepancy stems from the vagueness of the insertions.
