The Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, has supported the use of the Renewed Hope Intervention Fund to finance the reconstruction of the Mirtala Muhammed International Airport Lagos, which bypasses budgetary allocation following national assembly oversight.
In an interview with ARISE News on Monday, Keyamo argued that Nigeria’s reliance on the “envelope system,” a term used to describe the annual budgetary framework, has significantly hampered the execution of major infrastructure projects.
He cited the successful completion of the Second Niger Bridge and the stalled Enugu airport terminal as examples illustrating the stark difference between the two funding models.
“Significant national projects often languish under the envelope system of annual budgetary provisions, making it impossible for governments to build major infrastructure,” the Minister said.
Keyamo pointed to the Second Niger Bridge as a landmark achievement made possible by special funding.
According to him, successive governments had talked about the bridge for years, with no tangible progress, until former President Muhammadu Buhari intervened using a presidential intervention fund.
“That was what was used outside the budget to say put this thing for the Southeast people and the Second Niger Bridge came to stay,” Keyamo noted, adding that budgetary attempts had failed to produce results.
In contrast, he decried the slow pace of work at the Enugu airport terminal, blaming its funding through the conventional budget process. While new terminals in Lagos, Kano, Abuja, and Port Harcourt were built with a Chinese loan, Enugu’s was added later due to political reasons and tied to budgetary provisions.
“Every year they will put 100, 200 million, they’ll put 50 million,” Keyamo said. “If you go by budgetary allocations—this envelope system that we call it—for 20 years, no government will build any infrastructure.”
He stressed that successive administrations have always turned to special funding mechanisms to execute large projects that could not be financed effectively within the limits of standard annual budgets.
Keyamo further explained that the National Assembly often grants the presidency leverage for such special funds, giving the executive the “elbow room” to pursue critical infrastructure. He cited “servicewide votes,” funds not tied to any specific ministry or agency, as an example of the tools available to the President to bypass bureaucratic bottlenecks.
“This is a no-go area for those unfamiliar with the workings of government,” the Minister added, asserting that technical knowledge and flexibility are key to infrastructure delivery.
Chioma Kalu
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