A deleted National Assembly schedule gave Abuja airport's second runway N20 billion in 2022. The 2026 budget gives the same line N10 million

In a schedule the National Assembly published in March 2023 and has since taken off its website, the second runway at Abuja's Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport carried N20,000,000,000. It was the largest single project in the Federal Ministry of Aviation's capital budget under the 2022 Appropriation Amendment, about 34 per cent of the ministry's N58,000,008,040. The 2026 Appropriation Act lists the same project, under the same code, ERGP31142400, as ongoing. It gives it N10,000,000.

The 2022 schedule is a nine-page file headed "2022 Appropriation Amendment" and "National Assembly", posted by the National Assembly Budget and Research Office (NABRO) at https://nabro.gov.ng/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/2022-APPROPRIATION-AMENDMENT-AVIATION.pdf. Its upload folder dates it to March 2023. Common Crawl captured it on 4 October 2023 (crawl CC-MAIN-2023-40), and the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine holds two captures, the last on 6 July 2024. Vero Record holds a copy in its archive of deleted government files. When we requested the original address on 7 October 2026, the server answered HTTP 404 (not found), while the NABRO home page answered normally. NABRO's matching files for the Code of Conduct Bureau and the Code of Conduct Tribunal also return 404.

Page 1 of the schedule gives the ministry's headquarters, code 0230001001, N522,935,479 for personnel, N249,999,998 for overhead and N58,000,008,040 for capital, a total of N58,772,943,517. The project list behind that capital figure runs from page 2 to page 4. We re-added all 87 project lines. They come to N58,000,008,040, exactly the capital total, so the schedule is internally consistent.

On page 3, the line coded ERGP31142400 reads "Construction of second run-way of Nnamidi Azikwe International Airport Abuja", type "Ongoing", amount N20,000,000,000. The next largest project on the ministry's list is N5,100,000,000 for construction and apron expansion at Katsina airport.

The 2026 Appropriation Act gives the same ministry, now the Federal Ministry of Aviation and Aerospace Development, N48,552,725,375 in headquarters capital (page 1396 of the Act's PDF). On page 1399 the line coded ERGP31142400 carries the same words, "Construction of second run-way of Nnamidi Azikwe International Airport Abuja", the same status, "Ongoing", and N10,000,000. That is one two-thousandth of the 2022 figure and about 0.02 per cent of the ministry's 2026 capital. No other line in the 2026 Act names a second runway at Abuja.

The same two pages show a second pattern. In 2022, code ERGP31142898 was "Construction of Wachakal (Nguru) airstrip phase 1", N2,000,000,000, and on page 4 a further N2,000,000,000 went to "Construction of Wachakal airstrip phase 2 in Yobe State" under ERGP31179827. Neither Wachakal line appears anywhere in the 2026 Act. Code ERGP31142898 does: it now reads "Fire and rescue building at Margret Ekpo Calabar", N140,000,000.

It is not the only code that now names a different project. Matching the 87 codes in the 2022 headquarters list against the 2026 Act, we found seven that carry a different project in 2026. ERGP31141498 moved from replacing elevators and escalators at wings D and E (N150,000,000) to airfield lighting at Ilorin airport (N800,000,000). ERGP31153885 moved from Category 3 instrument landing and airfield lighting for Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Katsina, Kano and other airports (N1,000,000,000) to apron expansion at Katsina (N70,000,000). The others are ERGP31142409, ERGP31142931, ERGP31142936 and ERGP15141514. A further 35 of the 87 codes do not appear in the 2026 Act at all.

The documents allow an ordinary explanation for each of these changes, and we set it out plainly. A budget line is an authorisation to spend, not a payment, and an amount in 2022 says nothing about what was released or spent. Large projects are commonly given a token sum in a year when no new work is planned, to keep the line open, and the runway's N10,000,000 in 2026 fits that practice. Money for the runway may also have been provided in the 2023, 2024 or 2025 budgets, which this report did not examine, or outside the ministry's budget altogether.

The reuse of project codes also has a benign reading. The ERGP code is an administrative identifier, and nothing in either document says a code must stay tied to one project. A ministry that finishes or drops a project can attach its number to a new one. What the reuse does mean is that anyone tracing the Wachakal airstrip, or the wing D and E escalators, by code through later budgets will land on a different project, and only the earlier schedule shows what the code first described.

That earlier schedule is the point. The 2026 Act shows a runway project at N10,000,000 and describes it as ongoing. Without the 2022 file, the National Assembly's budget office no longer offers any public record that the same line once carried N20,000,000,000, the largest sum in the ministry's capital budget that year. Nothing in the documents suggests wrongdoing by anyone.

Neither document says why the 2022 amendment files were taken down, or what has been released and spent on the second runway and the Wachakal airstrip since 2022. Those are questions for NABRO and for the Federal Ministry of Aviation and Aerospace Development, and any answer will be added here.

What this rests on

1) NABRO, 2022 Appropriation Amendment, Federal Ministry of Aviation (9 pages; SHA-256 5d062bfff403e0fa8985cee0784884d2a4beecb499c23ad4fc2017bd32713439), original URL https://nabro.gov.ng/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/2022-APPROPRIATION-AMENDMENT-AVIATION.pdf; Common Crawl capture 4 October 2023 13:27:10 UTC, CC-MAIN-2023-40; Wayback Machine captures 4 October 2023 and 6 July 2024; live request on 7 October 2026 returned HTTP 404 (nabro.gov.ng home page returned 200). Page 1, headquarters 0230001001: N522,935,479 + N249,999,998 + N58,000,008,040 = N58,772,943,517 (checked). Project list: page 2, three lines, N581,064,064 + N150,000,000 + N228,179,066 = N959,243,130; pages 3 to 4, 84 lines = N57,040,764,910; N959,243,130 + N57,040,764,910 = N58,000,008,040, equal to the printed capital total. Runway share: N20,000,000,000 / N58,000,008,040 = 34.48 per cent. Wachakal: N2,000,000,000 (ERGP31142898, p.3) + N2,000,000,000 (ERGP31179827, p.4) = N4,000,000,000. 2) 2026 Appropriation Act (PDF as published by PLAC, 2,604 pages). PDF p.1396, Federal Ministry of Aviation and Aerospace Development HQ: N1,348,470,883 + N745,742,676 + N48,552,725,375 = N50,646,938,934 (checked). PDF p.1399: ERGP31142400 N10,000,000; ERGP31142898 'Fire and rescue building at Margret Ekpo Calabar' N140,000,000. N10,000,000 / N20,000,000,000 = 0.0005 (one two-thousandth); N20,000,000,000 minus N10,000,000 = N19,990,000,000; N10,000,000 / N48,552,725,375 = 0.0206 per cent. Code comparison: 87 codes in the 2022 HQ list; 45 recur in 2026 with the same or reworded project; 7 recur with a different project (ERGP31141498, ERGP31142409, ERGP31142898, ERGP31142931, ERGP31142936, ERGP31153885, ERGP15141514); 35 absent; 45 + 7 + 35 = 87. Text search of the full 2026 Act for 'Wachakal' and 'second run' returns only the one ERGP31142400 line.

What this does not establish

Whether the NABRO schedule is identical to the 2022 Appropriation Amendment as signed into law; how much of the N20,000,000,000 for the second runway or the N4,000,000,000 for the Wachakal airstrip was released or spent; what the 2023, 2024 and 2025 Appropriation Acts provided for these lines, which were not examined; whether any runway funding sits outside the ministry's budget, for example with FAAN or under a loan; why or when the NABRO files were removed; whether the Wachakal airstrip was completed or abandoned. Nothing in the documents indicates any offence.