Senate passes N58.4trn 2026 budget March 17

The Senate has fixed March 17 for final consideration and passage of the N58.472 trillion 2026 budget.

The Senate Committee on Appropriations announced this at a special session held in Abuja on Friday, January 30, 2026.

The lawmakers also fixed February 2 to February 13 for consideration of the budget estimates at committee levels.

The chairman of the committee, Solomon Adeola, also announced February 9 for public hearing on the budget proposal.

Adeola said a Professor of Economics from the University of Lagos (UNILAG), Wasiu Adeoye, will make a power-point presentation during the hearing on the budget.

“Budget hearing and engagement with MDAs starts on Monday, February 2 to Friday, February 13, where all sub-committee chairmen will invite all their relevant MDAs for discussion and presentation,” the lawmaker stated.

As proposed by Adeola and adopted by the committee, March 5 was fixed for an interactive session between members of the committee and economic managers of the federal government.

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These, Adeola said, would include the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, and the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Atiku Bagudu.

Adeola added that February 16 to February 23 had been fixed for the submission of reports on budget defence by the various committee chairmen for presentation of reports by the committee to the Senate on March 17.

He informed members of the committee that the Senate wanted the budget passed on March 12 before he convinced the leadership for an additional one week.

The senator said: “We must make sure we work within the time and ensure that the budget is passed, even though the leadership is asking for March 12 for the budget to be passed.

“Because I know how tedious this job can be once we start, so I try to convince them that we should look at March 17 and 19 so that we can pass the budget.”

The Star