This was revealed through a perusal of the details of the 2024 budget proposal by SaharaReporters on Wednesday.
The President Bola Tinubu-led Nigerian government has approved only a total of N2.6trillion for the Federal Ministry of Education and the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare in the 2024 appropriation.
SaharaReporters had on Wednesday reported that the Tinubu’s government earmarked the sum of N65 billion for the Presidential Amnesty Programme: Reintegration of Transformed Ex-Militants while N50 billion was budgeted for the purchase of arms and ammunition to protect the citizens in 2024.
This was revealed through a perusal of the details of the 2024 budget proposal by SaharaReporters on Wednesday.
The budgetary allocations were contained in items 32, 50 and 51 of the N27.5 trillion 2024 Appropriation Bill President Tinubu presented to the National Assembly on November 29 for approval.
According to the 2,290 pages budget document, Tinubu government allocated a total of N4,448,691,780,541 to the Ministry of Budget and National Planning, N1,438,967,020,402 to the Ministry of Education and N1,228,100,390,765 to the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare.
A breakdown of the budget allocations to the three ministries showed that the budgetary allocation to the Ministry of Budget and National Planning takes 16 percent of the total N27.5 trillion budget of the 2024 fiscal year and higher than the total budget for education and health ministries with N1,781,624,369,374.
This is despite the fact that education and health remain top among the highest priorities of every nation, especially in Nigeria where about 20 million out of school children have been recorded, while federal government-owned universities are constantly shut down by lecturers who regularly embark on industrial actions over underfunding of university education and fund-related issues in the country.
It has also become part of the Nigerian system for top political leaders and their cronies to embark on foreign medical trips on a regular basis as the country struggles to boast of a world-class health facility in primary, secondary or tertiary level of the health system.
Ravaging insecurity unleashed on Nigeria by terrorists in the Northern region of the country and violent agitations in the South East and other regions of country, coupled with daily incidents of kidnappings and brutal killings by various armed gangs have compounded the social welfare challenge in Nigeria.
It has continually been reported that at least 133 million Nigerians live in multidimensional poverty and millions are still in Internally Displaced Camps across the country following the activities of insurgents that forced them out of their ancestral homes.