By Samuel Ajayi, Ayobami Ayorinde and Oluchi Nkeonye | Since Nigeria’s return to democracy in 1999, constituency projects have become a defining, though highly debated, feature of federal budgets.

The practice has been sustained by the expectation that legislators should also deliver concrete “dividends of democracy” to their constituents and has been enabled through collusion between the executive and the legislative arms of government. However, the process of and the approach to initiating, designing, approving and implementing constituency projects have thrown up critical issues around separation of powers, delineation of duties, conflict of interests, abuse of process, and optimal allocation of scarce resources, among others.

Federal legislators have always justified their demand for and sponsorship of constituency projects on three grounds. One is that they are under obligation to ensure that the interests of their specific constituencies are not lost in the expectedly national outlook of the president. Two is that their role in the budgeting process is not simply ceremonial. They contend that they have the powers to scrutinise, reduce, reallocate, and increase expenditures in budget proposals submitted by the executive. And three is that parliamentarians bringing benefits to their constituencies is a standard practice even in the most advanced democracies, and they readily point to the practice of pork-barrel politics in the United States of America.

These are fair points. But the fairness of these arguments does not justify the evident abuse and the irregularities that have become synonymous with federally-funded constituency projects in Nigeria. According to BudgIT, a budget transparency organisation, the National Assembly added 11, 122 projects worth N6.93 trillion to the 2025 federal budget.^[1] The N6.93 trillion amounts to 12.6% of the total N54.99 trillion budget for the year. Beyond the amount or the percentage involved, these budgetary allocations include items like streetlights, boreholes, renovation of townhalls and empowerment of traditional rulers, items that should have no place in a federal budget.

Nigeria’s federal structure was designed to promote efficiency through a clear separation of responsibilities among the three tiers of government. Each tier is resourced to carry out its assigned responsibilities through allocations from the Federation Account and from its independent revenues. Using federal resources to fund some of these basic items, which should fall within the scope of local government areas or at best states, distorts the principle of federalism and shields subnational governments from accountability. There is also the risk of duplication and waste.

Constituency projects have also become vehicles for corruption and abuse of office, as investigations and recoveries by the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) have amply shown. A review of the 2025 budget also reveals many instances where projects are assigned to agencies outside of their mandates and competencies. There is also an issue with how constituency projects are conceived. There is no evidence that the projects are based on need assessments and on proper costing (the allocations are, not surprisingly, usually round figures). There is hardly an assessment of the of the operations and the impact of the projects whne completed. The main motivations seem to be patronage and electoral leverage for the legislators. Most of the constituency projects also come at the tail-end of the budget process, and are unilaterally initiated by legislators. There are also documented instances where the legislators implement the projects through proxies or relatives, and cases where these projects are not implemented at all even after release of funds or where the quality of work does not match the amount allocated.

While the legislators can be accused of abusing their budget-vetting power, the leadership of the executive is not blameless too. Rather than taking a principled stand against the inclusion of projects not originating from or not pre-accommodated by the executive, successive administrations have allowed or sometimes encouraged legislative additions in exchange for smooth passage of budgets or as the ‘small price’ for executive-legislative harmony.

A notable exception was in 2016 when former President Muhammadu Buhari initially refused to sign off on allocations for constituency projects after discovering that some projects proposed by his administration had been removed and replaced with others by the legislators. It was a rare pushback. But even that resistance didn’t last. In 2019, Buhari said there was no tangible result from the more than N1 trillion spent on constituency projects in the previous ten years.^[2]  Two years later, he publicly objected to changes and additions made by the National Assembly to the 2022 budget but still appended his signature.^[3]

The anomalies around constituency projects are getting progressively worse, as legislators become more emboldened and increasingly see these projects as their entitlements. In a time of heightened economic pressures, the federal government needs to spend in a smarter, more strategic and more effective way. There is thus an urgent need to rethink and refine the approach to constituency projects as part of the larger measures designed to ensure prudence in federal spending and restore integrity to the budgeting process.  

History and Evolution of Constituency Projects in the 4^th Republic

With the end of military rule and the return to civil rule in 1999, newly-elected legislators were also eager to deliver "dividends of democracy" by directing tangible development projects to their home constituencies. This was supposedly aimed at ensuring a more equitable distribution of resources to areas that had long been neglected^[4]. This push frequently resulted in tense negotiations between the executive and the legislative arms of government, occasionally leading to delays in the passage of annual budgets. The quest by legislators initially manifested through lobbying of executive heads for the siting of specific projects in their constituencies or in the extreme through expansion or multiplication of projects proposed by the executive, famously called budget padding.

This legislative assertiveness met with executive resistance. President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration, the first administration in the Fourth Republic, initially resisted but eventually conceded as a way to bridge infrastructure gaps in neglected communities and to reduce face-offs between the executive and legislature. Some of these demands were accommodated through projects under the debt relief gains.

The turning point came in 2007, when President Umaru Yar’Adua promised a yearly allocation of ₦100 billion for projects in legislative constituencies. These were known as “Zonal Intervention Projects” or “Special Intervention Projects”^[5]. From 2008 budget onward, this dedicated fund became a regular feature of federal budgets, effectively formalising constituency projects as a budgetary tradition.^[6]. At some point, the executive agreed that the Office of the Special Adviser on MDGs (now SDGs) would coordinate project implementation but with inputs from lawmakers^[7]. Despite the formalisation of the ZIPs/SIPs, concerns regarding corruption and misuse of funds persisted. In November 2009, for example, President Yar’Adua directed ministers to halt some constituency projects worth ₦60 billion that had been nominated for implementation by lawmakers in the 2009 Appropriation Act^[8].  

Presently, constituency projects come in two forms: the N100 billion allocated annually in the proposed budget by the executive and the additional ones included in the approved budget by the legislators. A recent BudgIT report claims that the legislators included projects worth a staggering N6.93 trillion in the 2025 budget^[9]. This constitutes 12.6% of the entire budget and a substantial 53% of the budget deficit. Analysis by BudgIT shows that there has been a dramatic increase in these insertions in the past three years, rising from N638 billion in 2023 to N2.24 trillion in 2024, then to N6.93 trillion in 2025 ^[10]. It is conceivable that, if present trend continues, the additions for constituency projects will continue to grow in absolute and relative terms.

Legislators are quick to defend the need for constituency projects. They and those who sympathise with their position always advance a number of arguments. One is that the Nigerian voters assess all elected officials, legislators inclusive, on the basis of tangible benefits delivered. They argue that legislators who focus strictly on sponsoring bills, moving motions and contributing to debates and oversight responsibilities might be at a disadvantage and be seen as non-performing by their constituents if they do not supplement with concrete deliverables. This is why some legislators invest personal resources on micro-credit and scholarship schemes, in distributing cash and food, bicycles, motorcycles, grinding machines etc., to their constituents or in funding repairs and construction of schools, health centres, boreholes etc. They contend that federally-funded projects allow them to do more for their constituents. Of course, this increases their political and electoral relevance.

A related argument is that constituency projects allow for a more even distribution of the ‘dividends of democracy’ across the country. Ordinarily, federal projects might be concentrated in urban areas and in the capitals of states and geo-political zones. The argument is that with dedicated allocation to each federal constituency and each senatorial district, more parts of the country would benefit from federal projects and presence. Another set of arguments in support of constituency projects is that they are within the powers of the legislators. They argue that legislators all over the world have the ‘power of the purse’ and this power is not merely to approve or rubberstamp any proposal from the executive. An extension of this is that representation is one of their three responsibilities (legislation, representation and oversight), and that proper representation includes looking out for the interests and needs of their constituents in federal budgets.

In 2013, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila (who later went on to become the Speaker of the House of Representatives and is currently the Chief of Staff to the President) defended legislators’ “right” to influence the national budget for their constituents. He stated: “to say a legislator is only there to make laws and restrict his role to such misses the true essence of representative or participatory democracy. Surely, a legislator represents his people in the centre, and part of his responsibility is to attract federal presence to his community. How else can he do this? The annual budget provides him the opportunity to attract the much-needed federal presence in his constituency and justify his raison d'etre"^[11].

But not everyone buys this argument. As a matter of fact, the legality of legislative constituency projects has long been a matter of debate, particularly concerning whether legislators can unilaterally initiate and approve such projects. The roles of the executive and legislature in the budgeting process are specified in the constitution. The executive is responsible for preparing and implementing the budget, while the legislature is empowered to scrutinise and approve budgets, and monitor implementation.  The executive cannot approve budgets and the legislature cannot initiate budgets.

In a 2015 journal article, Olusesan Orimogunje argued that ‘legislative constituency projects represent an obvious departure from the traditional constitutional role of the legislature under the doctrine of separation of powers, and usurpation of the role of the executive by the legislature.’ ^[12] He further stated that the “legislature appears to have no constitutional power to include in the budget the funding of any project that was not made part of the estimates of the executive in the Appropriation Bill” and concluded that “constituency projects are not within the contemplation of the provisions of Section 80 or Section 81 of the Constitution.”  This position was also echoed by the former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Yakubu Dogara^[13] and the former President of the Senate, Senator Ken Nnamani. Both of them stated further that it is wrong for lawmakers to be directly involved in the execution of constituency projects^[14].

Several attempts have been made to provide a firmer legal footing for constituency projects. At the subnational level, the Lagos State House of Assembly in 2000 passed a law to earmark 15% of the state’s capital budgets for projects in the 40 local constituencies of the state^[15]. It was not signed by the governor. The assembly overrode the governor’s veto but later withdrew the provision after it became a matter of litigation^[16] and possibly after political accommodation. In 2016 and again in 2019, bills were introduced in the National Assembly to institutionalise constituency projects as a certain percentage of the budget^[17]. One such bill, sponsored by Senator Stella Oduah, sought to allocate at least 20% of annual budgets to constituency projects. Proponents argued this would speed up rural development and correct imbalances in federal project distribution^[18]. However, these efforts faced resistance. Critics pointed out that carving out a fixed share of the budget for lawmakers’ projects could infringe on constitutional provisions.

In 2023, the Senate debated a bill to legalise and increase the annual constituency project fund. Titled the “Constituency Projects (Budgetary) Provision Bill,” it was ultimately rejected^[19], as it failed to scale through second reading. Lawmakers opposed to it argued that formalising the fund could tie the hands of future parliaments in budgeting, and the bill was dropped on constitutional and policy grounds. Even if these bills had been passed, they would still not have resolved all the issues around the way in which federal constituency projects are currently conceived and implemented. 

Why the Current Approach to Constituency Projects is Flawed

Not all arguments canvassed in support of constituency projects are frivolous or self-serving. There is a case to be made for a more even spread of federal spending so that citizens across the country can benefit more from the ‘dividends of democracy’. It is not unreasonable for parliamentarians to look out for the interests of their constituencies or for them to lobby the executive to site key projects in their constituencies. Also, constitutionally-backed legislative power over appropriation is not merely to approve budgets as proposed by the executive. It is equally not wrong for the executive to allocate a specific amount in annual budgets for constituency projects, as President Yar’Adua did when he earmarked N100 billion per year for these projects, a practice that has been sustained by subsequent administrations. The problem is that the approach to the additional constituency projects is deeply flawed and is thus in need of reform or refinement.

There are five major flaws in the conception and execution of these additional projects. The first flaw is procedural. Over the time, legislators have made a habit of including in approved budgets some items not in the appropriation bills submitted by the executive. While it is the remit of the legislature to approve budgets, it is beyond the scope of their powers to initiate budgets. When legislators create and include projects in budgets, as they have been doing over the years, they are not only encroaching into executive territory, they are combining the power to initiate budgets with the power to approve budgets. This is alien to the presidential system that we practice. It is against the principles of separation of powers and undermines the checks and balances that underpin the presidential system. The powers to initiate and approve budgets are separated for good reasons, and fusing the two powers opens the door for abuse.

The second flaw is the resultant abuse in terms of opacity and corruption. Legislators have now come to regard constituency projects as their annual entitlements that they can allocate to whatever projects they want and at whatever costs they decide, and with no questions asked since they do the approvals themselves and they also monitor implementation through oversight. Not only do they choose their projects and place them in pliable MDAs but they also sometimes choose the contractors, which has implications for conflict of interests and for the quality of work. A 2019 report by ICPC revealed that many constituency projects were poorly executed, abandoned halfway, or never even started even with funds fully disbursed. ICPC uncovered many ghost projects. By 2022, ICPC had recovered over ₦2.8 billion in cash and assets linked to fraudulent constituency projects^[20].

A notable example of how legislators abuse the process was discovered by ICPC in Kebbi Central Senatorial District. A contract for the supply of 686 water pumping machines was awarded to Voltricity Nigeria Ltd, a company allegedly owned by the children of the senator who sponsored the project. That was not an isolated case. The same senator also reportedly awarded other public projects to three other companies—Alliance Trading Co. Ltd, Hummingbird Projects and Services International Ltd, and Puranova Nig. Ltd, all of which were also owned and operated by his biological children. A similar situation played out in Jigawa South-West Senatorial District. The contract for constructing hand-pump boreholes, supplying water pumps, motorcycles, and even two Toyota Hilux trucks, was awarded to Schramm Global Services Ltd, a company reportedly owned by the senator’s two younger brothers^[21]. These cases reflect a blatant conflict of interests, a misuse of public office, and a deep disregard for the rules that are meant to protect public funds and ensure fairness in procurement.

The third flaw is the deployment of federal resources into projects that should fall within the purview of subnational governments. Legislators have developed a penchant for micro projects such as streetlights and boreholes that should be the responsibility of local authorities (and without consideration of how those projects would be maintained afterwards). According to BudgIT, 1,477 streetlight projects worth N393.29 billion and 538 borehole projects worth N114.53 billion were included in the 2025 budget by the National Assembly. There are also curious inclusions in the budget of projects such as renovation of townhalls and palaces and purchase of fairly-used cars for traditional rulers. These are items that should have no place in a federal budget. This is not to say federal funds cannot be used for local matters but this should be based on a strategic decision by the federal government and on projects that are either beyond the capacity of the local authorities or on projects that have catalytic value. Spreading federal funds too thin also limits impact and such should be avoided at a time of increasing competition for scarce resources. There is also the risk of duplication and waste as well as allowing states and LGAs to get a free pass on their areas of responsibility.

The fourth flaw is the distortion and the misalignment that constituency projects introduce into the budget. As revealed by BudgIT, 1,142 projects worth N320.74 billion were included by the National Assembly in the approved budget of Federal Cooperative College, Oji River, Enugu State. The legislators clearly are not bothered about whether such a school has the capacity to implement projects worth N320 billion in one budget year. There are many other MDAs that received approved budgets far in excess of what the executive proposed. A clear example is the Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation. The budget proposed for the ministry by the executive was ₦153.3 billion. But by the time the National Assembly was done with it, the final budget for the ministry had skyrocketed to ₦1.15 trillion, a jump of over 650%. The ministry’s capital expenditure alone rose from ₦69.2 billion to ₦1.06 trillion, an increase of more than 1,400%.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security also experienced a significant surge in its budget. From an initial allocation of ₦636.1 billion, the final figure rose to ₦2.2 trillion, an increase of 245%. Capital expenditure in that ministry jumped from ₦480.7 billion to ₦2.1 trillion, an increase of 337%. A significant portion of this increase is tied not to large-scale agricultural transformation projects, but to the addition of numerous constituency projects, which are mainly disconnected from the ministry’s main mandate, making a mockery of the coherence of the budget. Another example is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, primarily responsible for managing Nigeria’s diplomatic relations. The ministry has neither the technical expertise nor the institutional mandate to implement borehole projects, yet such projects appeared under its 2025 budget as illustrated in the screenshot below. In a similar vein, the Ministry of Labour and Employment and the Ministry of Science and Technology have found themselves tasked with building/renovating palaces for traditional rulers. The fact that MDAs with no responsibility for education and health have budgetary provisions for education and health projects makes it difficult to track what the federal government is spending in these sectors. 

The fifth flaw is that the approach to constituency projects potentially weakens the effective of the legislative arm of government. It has opened up an avenue for patronage politics and for compromising the legislature. In the early days of the 4^th Republic, constituency projects started as opportunity for legislators to have inputs into a limited pool of projects earmarked for constituencies. Now, the practice has metamorphosed into earmarked allocations to individual legislator, and created a sense of entitlement. The exact amount involved remains a secret between the executive and the legislative arms (which raises questions about transparency and accountability in management of public resources). Senator Ali Ndume reveaed that in the 2024 budget all the senators received ₦200 million each for their constituency projects, with principal officers receiving even more^[22]. It is alleged that legislators currently receive multiples of what Senator Ndume revealed. While this may increase the electoral value of individual legislators, this approach diverts their attention from their core responsibility of holding the executive to account and makes them susceptible to executive capture.

Options and Recommendations

Based on the gravity of these and other flaws in the current conception and execution of constituency projects in Nigeria, an apparent option will be to call for their scrapping. Those in favour of this option will insist that the two arms of government should stick strictly to their assigned responsibilities on budgeting: the executive should initiate and implement budgets while the legislature should vet and monitor budgets. But this position will assume that all constituency projects have been of no value or that there is no merit to the argument for even distribution of federal projects or that legislators have no responsibility to look out for their constituents. Besides, it may not be politically feasible to completely scrap constituency projects. Given how the voters and the legislators have become attached to constituency projects and how the executive tolerates them as the small price for ‘harmonious executive-legislative relations’, it will be difficult, politically, to simply eliminate federally-funded constituency projects.

This then leaves the option of sanitising the process for initiating and delivering federally-funded constituency projects. The reform option will not necessarily be smooth-sailing. Those benefiting from the status quo will find ways to push back. But the refinement option is more practical and stands a higher chance of success than the abolition one. For this to work, the executive arm needs to take the lead and must re-assert, in a politically deft manner, its authority to initiate, design and implement budgets.

It will be necessary for the executive to develop a policy framework for implementing constituency projects. This framework should specify the upper limit of constituency projects in each budget (either as absolute number or as a percentage), the modality for distribution (whether the allocation will be on zonal, state or constituency basis), what federal funds can be used for, and the deadline and the channel for legislators to make inputs into budget proposals by the executive before it is sent to the National Assembly. The framework should also have unambiguous provisions on conflict of interests in the procurement of contractors for these projects. 

Having such a framework will bring clarity and transparency and limit some of the abuses in the present arrangement. It will restore the authority of the executive to initiate, design and implement budgets. Legislators can make inputs/submissions on potential constituency projects to the executive when budget proposals are being prepared. But the final decision on costs and scope of the projects and the implementing MDAs should be made by the executive. This will bring greater coherence to the federal budgets and should eliminate the practice of placing constituency projects in MDAs that do not have the capacity or the mandate for such projects. It should also address the abnormality of legislators creating and approving constituency projects, as they currently do. Setting out what federal budgets can fund will also reduce the tendency to focus on projects that should fall within the jurisdiction of subnational governments and prevent unnecessary fragmentation of federal budgets.

In designing this framework, Nigeria can learn from other countries that have Constituency Development Funds (CDFs), especially the conception and operation of India’s Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS).^[23]  This scheme was started in 1993 to allow members of parliament “to recommend works of development nature with emphasis on the creation of durable community assets based on locally felt needs.” The scheme is currently administered and coordinated by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.

Even though India operates a parliamentary system, the role of the legislators in MPLADS is limited to recommending projects in consultation with local authorities within their constituencies. The coordinating ministry has to sanction the recommendations by the legislators and has the power to decide the appropriate agencies to handle implementation. The ministry also issues guidelines^[24] on works covered and not covered under the scheme, the implementation structure, the fund management and accounting procedures, and the monitoring and evaluation frameworks, among others. The coordinating ministry also publishes fund release statements^[25], and detailed works^[26] and expenditure^[27] reports which help to deepen transparency and accountability and enhance public trust. It is noteworthy that the scheme and the projects have been evaluated and refined over the course of its 32 years of existence to ensure greater alignment and impact. There are important lessons in the operations of MPLADS on how to impose sanity, structure and safeguards on earmarked projects which the federal government will do well to take on board to fix the flawed approach to constituency projects in Nigeria.

Specifically, we recommend the following:

1. The executive arm of government should reassert the power to initiate, design, cost and implement all projects in federal budgets.

2. All projects meant for legislative constituencies should be collapsed under the Strategic Intervention Projects (SIPs) or a new Constituency Projects Scheme (CPS).

3. The projects under SIPs or CPS should be coordinated by a ministry or an executive agency, which will decide, based on federal priority, which projects to move forward out of those recommended by legislators, and which will determine the costs and the scope of and implementing MDAs for the projects, and prepare the proposed budgets for the projects. The proposal by the coordinating ministry/agency should form part of the appropriation bill submitted by the president to the National Assembly.

4. The coordinating ministry should, in consultation with stakeholders, publish a policy framework specifying:
   • the projects that can and cannot be funded under the scheme;
   • the upper limit of the amount that can be spent on each project;
   • the modalities for distribution and selection of constituency projects;
   • the process and the deadline for legislators to recommend projects for the executive to include in budget proposals;
   • the individuals and entities to be excluded from bidding as contractors under the scheme to prevent conflict of interests.

5. The coordinating ministry/agency should be charged with monitoring implementation and assessing the impacts of the projects, publishing annual progress reports, and maintaining a portal where the public, the media and civic groups can track projects’ locations, costs, contractors, fund release and status.

 

*Uchechukwu Eze, Seyi Akinbodewa, and Doyinsola Wale-Banmore contributed to this paper.

 

^[1] https://budgit.org/post_publications/2025-budget-insertions-by-the-national-assembly/

^[2] https://dailytrust.com/buhari-n1trn-wasted-on-constituency-projects-in-10yrs/

^[3] https://www.proshare.co/articles/president-buhari-signs-n17.13trn-2022-budget-raises-concerns-over-changes-made?menu=Economy&classification=Read&category=Budget%20and%20Plans

^[4]  Patrick Nnadozie Udefuna, Fadila Jumare, and Francis Ojo Adebayo, “Legislative Constituency Project in Nigeria: Implication for National Development,” Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences 4, no. 6 (July 1, 2013), https://doi.org/10.5901/mjss.2013.v4n6p647.

^[5]Constituency Project Stink: How lawmakers pad budgets, make billions https://www.vanguardngr.com/2024/03/constituency-project-stink-how-lawmakers-pad-budgets-make-billions/

^[6]Constituency Project Stink: How lawmakers pad budgets, make billions https://www.vanguardngr.com/2024/03/constituency-project-stink-how-lawmakers-pad-budgets-make-billions/

^[7] How non-relevant agencies are used to execute constituency projects https://guardian.ng/saturday-magazine/cover/how-non-relevant-agencies-are-used-to-execute-constituency-projects/

^[8] Yar'Adua Stops N60 Billion Constituency Projects

https://allafrica.com/stories/200911030025.html

^[9] https://budgit.org/post_publications/2025-budget-insertions-by-the-national-assembly/

^[10] https://icpc.gov.ng/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/BudgetAnalysis-BOLD.pdf

^[11] Constituency Projects, Budget Process And Related Matters – Role Of Legislature And General Misconceptions, By Femi Gbajabiamila https://www.premiumtimesng.com/opinion/123687-constituency-projects-budget-process-and-related-matters-role-of-legislature-and-general-misconceptions-by-femi-gbajabiamila.html

^[12] Constituency Projects and its Implication for Democratic Development: Focus on Nigeria National Assembly chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/http://ijeais.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/6/IJAMR210625.pdf

^[13] Why Nigerian budget must always have constituency projects – Speaker Dogara https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/headlines/204705-nigerian-budget-must-always-constituency-projects-speaker-dogara.html?tztc=1

^[14] Nnamani: It’s Wrong for Lawmakers to Execute Constituency Projects https://www.thisdaylive.com/2016/04/26/nnamani-its-wrong-for-lawmakers-to-execute-constituency-projects/

^[15] Nigeria: Lagos Assembly Moves To Corner 15% Of Tinubu's Budget https://allafrica.com/stories/199912230186.html#:~:text=Lagos%20%E2%80%94%20In%20an%20attempt%20to,to%20monitor%20same%20to%20completion.

^[16] Nigeria: Assembly Drops Controversial Bill From Budget

https://allafrica.com/stories/200003030289.html

^[17] Analysis: Despite poor allocations to health, education, lawmakers want 20% of national budget for constituency projects https://www.icirnigeria.org/analysis-despite-poor-allocations-to-health-education-lawmakers-want-20-of-national-budget-for-constituency-projects/

^[18] Senators want 20% of annual budget allocated to constituency projects https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/top-news/367843-senators-want-20-of-annual-budget-allocated-to-constituency-projects.html

^[19] Constituency Project Stink: How lawmakers pad budgets, make billions https://www.vanguardngr.com/2024/03/constituency-project-stink-how-lawmakers-pad-budgets-make-billions/

^[20] Constituency Projects Fraud: ICPC recovers N2.8 billion in three years https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/headlines/554074-constituency-projects-fraud-icpc-recovers-n2-8-billion-in-three-years.html

^[21] Constituency Projects Tracking initiative (CPTi) https://icpc.gov.ng/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Constituency-and-Executive-Projects-Tracking-Initiative-Phase-II-Interim-Report-1.pdf

^[22] Ndume: Each senator got N200m for projects — but presiding officers received more https://www.thecable.ng/ndume-each-senator-got-n200m-for-projects-but-presiding-officers-received-more/

^[23] https://mplads.gov.in/mplads/Default.aspx

^[24] https://mplads.gov.in/MPLADS/UploadedFiles/MPLADSGuidelines2023_English_.pdf

^[25] https://mplads.gov.in/mplads/AuthenticatedPages/Reports/Citizen/rptDetailsSummary.aspx

^[26] https://mplads.gov.in/mplads/AuthenticatedPages/Reports/Citizen/rptCMSStateWiseSector_Scheme.aspx

^[27] https://mplads.gov.in/mplads/AuthenticatedPages/Reports/Citizen/rptExpenditureDetailsofStatewise.aspx