Politics • Nigeria • 2025 Budget

N266m Streetlight Claim Is Misleading, Say Defenders of the 2025 Budget

By Sojworldnews • October 24, 2026

A viral joke asks whether Nigeria is installing the sun. The joke says each streetlight in the 2025 budget costs N266 million. Defenders of the budget say the claim is misleading, and the facts support them on that point. The number rests on a simple counting mistake, and it has now spread far beyond its source.

The claim starts with a BudgIT report. The civil society group found that the National Assembly inserted 11,122 projects worth N6.93 trillion into the 2025 budget. Among them, it flagged 1,477 streetlight projects worth N393.29 billion. Social media users then divided the total by 1,477 and announced a price tag of N266 million per light.

“1,477 line items mentioned projects aimed at installing streetlights, not just 1,477 streetlights.”

BudgIT analyst Vahyala Kwaga made that clarification, according to a Dubawa fact-check. In other words, 1,477 counts projects, not poles. Each line item can cover dozens of lights, a whole road or an entire community. Consequently, the division produces a figure that means nothing. Dubawa rated the claim misleading for exactly that reason.

Even BudgIT now admits the error. Kwaga said the group’s own infographic caption misread the data when it divided the total by 1,477. Therefore, the N266 million figure did not come from a contract or a price list. It came from a faulty sum.

Supporters of the government also point to basic context. First, solar street lighting is a real need in many communities. Roads without lights invite crime and accidents, and lawmakers say constituents ask for them constantly. Second, a single project can bundle poles, panels, batteries, cabling, installation and maintenance. Naturally, that costs far more than a bulb. For example, one separate line item in the budget funded solar street lights at a federal college in Enugu State at N1 billion, which shows how bundled these projects can be.

Furthermore, defenders note that the Constitution gives the National Assembly the power to appropriate funds. Lawmakers argue that constituency projects let them carry local needs into the budget. They say the executive cannot see every community’s priorities from Abuja. As a result, they describe such projects as a legitimate part of representation, not a scandal in itself.

Admittedly, the debate is not closed. BudgIT did not retract its wider concern. It still calls the insertions indiscriminate, and it notes that they were absent from the executive’s original proposal. Likewise, it flagged 238 projects above N5 billion each as lacking justification. The budget’s wording is also vague. It gives no locations, quantities or unit costs, so nobody can say how many lights N393.29 billion would actually buy.

That vagueness is the honest weak spot, and critics will keep pressing it. Even so, a fair argument needs a fair number. The viral joke fails because it invents a price that no document contains. Therefore, anyone who wants accountability should demand project lists, costs and locations, not repeat a figure that BudgIT itself has walked back.

In short, the sun is safe. The real question is whether the money will light up Nigerian streets at a fair price, and only transparent budgets and public tracking can answer it.

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