A top member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Segun Sowunmi, has asked the Federal Government to scrap constituency projects from the national budget. He said the projects encourage corruption, weaken legislative oversight, and allow lawmakers to misuse public funds.
Sowunmi, who was a former spokesperson for Atiku Abubakar’s 2019 presidential campaign, made the call while speaking with Saturday PUNCH. He said lawmakers use constituency projects for personal gain rather than public good.
“The problem with the National Assembly is how we end up with a process that we call constituency projects. I feel we are coming to a point where we have to remove that from the privileges that the National Assembly members get,” Sowunmi said.
He explained that because lawmakers seek contracts and benefits from ministries and agencies, they cannot properly perform their duty of oversight.
“That already means that there is a collaborative potential and a lack of independence between the legislature and the executive,” he added.
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According to him, constituency projects started as a way for lawmakers to provide benefits to their communities, but the idea has been abused over time.
“Constituency projects only crept into our democracy because the government was trying to figure out how to give them something to take back to their people. But I think that the process is now over-abused,” he said.
Sowunmi’s comments came shortly after a civic-tech group, BudgIT, reported that lawmakers inserted 11,122 projects worth ₦6.93 trillion into the 2025 national budget. These projects make up 12.5% of the total ₦54.99 trillion budget signed by President Bola Tinubu.
BudgIT’s report showed that 238 of the projects, each worth over ₦5 billion and totaling ₦2.29 trillion, were added to the budget without proper explanation. Another 3,573 projects worth ₦653.19 billion were linked to federal constituencies, while 1,972 projects worth ₦444.04 billion were assigned to senatorial districts.
Sowunmi warned that such practices are damaging public trust. “The recurring controversy over inflated budgets and unexecuted projects linked to lawmakers’ constituency allocations has eroded public confidence,” he said.
He urged the government to cancel constituency projects completely and use the money for more meaningful and lasting development.