The House of Representatives plans to put President Bola Tinubu’s forthcoming 2027 budget proposal before young Nigerians ahead of lawmakers acting on it, Speaker Tajudeen Abbas said on Monday.
Speaker Abbas disclosed this while representing President Tinubu at the closing ceremony of the 2026 National Youth Conference at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
He described the budget exercise as an attempt to make a fiscal plan that has often been drafted late and scrutinized hurriedly more responsive to citizens.
Abbas said the House would convene its year-end youth town hall after President Tinubu presents the 2027 Appropriation Bill, which the government expects to submit to the National Assembly before December 31 2026.
NewsQuest reports that the timetable leaves little slack before the fiscal year begins on January 1, reviving concerns about whether lawmakers will have adequate time to examine spending priorities, revenue assumptions and implementation risks.
“Last year, we did an unusual meeting with the youth of this country,” Abbas said.
“We waited until when Mr. President brought the budget of the country. We took that budget down to the youth and asked them to put their inputs, advice on where they think this budget needs to be tinkered.”
The Speaker said the outcome of that engagement helped guide the legislature’s final budget approvals.
“We want to do the same thing this year. We want to subject the whole entire budget of the country to the youth to see and to advise on where and where they think we need to actually panelbeat to make the budget more responsive.”
He invited participants at the Youth Conference to the December session, which he said would presumably follow President Tinubu’s presentation of the 2027 budget.
A draft 2027-2029 Medium-Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper had been completed in July to enable submission of the 2027 budget to lawmakers by September.
Minister of State for Budget and Economic Planning Doris Uzoka-Anite however said in late October that the administration was still working on the proposal and intended to present it before year-end.
Speaker Abbas used the youth event to press for broader participation in fiscal decisions.
He praised the Minister of Youth Development Ayodele Olawande who has been behind the programme and urged organizers to expand future editions beyond the House’s 360-member composition to the nation’s more than 8,000 wards, selecting one participant from each ward.
“I want you to please, in the next edition, try to take it further down to state constituencies, so that at the end of the day, we can have more than 770 representatives of all the state constituencies,” Abbas said.
He also encouraged Finance Minister Taiwo Oyedele, whom he said plans a separate programme for roughly 10,000 young people, to adopt a ward-level model.
“It will give a better representation of the youth of this country,” the Speaker said.
The youth-driven dialogue platform, brought together young voices from all 360 federal constituencies, six geopolitical zones, and the diaspora.
The closing ceremony was attended by the Director-General of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) Brigadier General Olakunle and the Minister of Finance.
