The campaign by senators for the appropriation of additional funds for their controversial ‘constituency projects’ entrenches the culture of brazen misapplication of public resources by Nigeria’s lawmakers. While recently discussing a bill to provide for Constituency Projects in the Annual Budget of the Federation, senators canvassed for more funding for these projects. This is plain state capture. Not only is it insensitive, given the poverty ravaging majority of Nigerians, but the projects have frequently been embroiled in allegations of corruption and waste. President Bola Tinubu, the leadership of the National Assembly and civil society organisations should firmly intervene and stop the charade.

Constituency projects have been an avenue for lawmakers to take undue charge of these public projects and their funding as revealed by reports from anti-corruption agencies and CSOs. The public bears the brunt as the projects usually add hardly any value. Often, the funds cannot be properly accounted for, allege critics.

The lawmakers restated their worn argument during the plenary: that they want to “spread development to their constituencies.” This falls flat in the face of poor implementation and alleged abuse of funds over the years.

Former President Muhammadu Buhari lamented that there was nothing to show for the N1 trillion allocated for this in the 10 years to 2018.

Undoubtedly, NASS members are bleeding the treasury through this odious culture of entitlement. One senator whined, “I am now in the Senate, and I don’t know how much I will get. Some people said I will get N100 million or N200 million, but that amount is grossly inadequate.”

They have accordingly ‘raided’ the 2023 Supplementary Budget of N2.17 trillion that Tinubu assented to in November. The impunity began last December when Buhari forwarded a supplementary budget of N809.5 billion to the NASS.

Among others, lawmakers slashed a provision ofN70.4 billion for the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing to restore the flood-damaged roads to N11.5 billion and diverted the rest to constituency projects.

The constituency projects allocated to the leadership of the Ninth Senate were removed and diverted to the leadership of the 10th Senate. In one case, a ranking senator diverted the construction of police barracks to his own constituency! Lawmakers continue to justify inserting irrelevant projects like town halls, TV viewing centres, and boreholes that properly belong to local governments.

In 2021, a lawmaker from Adamawa State revealed that each Member of the House of Representatives received N100 million for constituency projects. This was reportedly increased to N150 million in August.

But lawmakers are not contractors or the executive. It is scandalous that during an economic downturn, lawmakers insist on self-serving irrelevancies.

In its 2018 report, BudgIT, which tracks public projects, stated that only 37.7 per cent of the constituency projects were completed. Of the 1,497 projects tracked, 144 (9.6 per cent) were ongoing, 536 (35.8 per cent) were yet to commence, and 224 (15 per cent) were abandoned.

The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission’s fourth Constituency and Executive Projects Tracking Exercise released in 2022 revealed that lawmakers inserted 109 of 543 selected projects.

The culture festers primarily because erring lawmakers are not prosecuted for their misdeeds, and neither the Presidency nor the public stand up to them. The Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, and House Speaker, Tajudeen Abbas, and Tinubu must redefine constituency projects.

The global best practice – as occurs in the United States – is for lawmakers to attract infrastructure projects like military bases, dams, tech hubs, and agriculture schemes to their constituencies, not to be allocated funds, or to supervise them.

As undertaken in Nigeria, constituency projects drain scarce resources, deliver negligible benefits, and facilitate waste. The practice should be stopped forthwith.

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