President Muhammadu Buhari has finally signed the 2016 budget into law. This took place at about 1pm today at a ceremony held in the Presidential Villa, Abuja. This ends months of conflict between the Presidency and the Legislature. However, the details of the final budget is unknown.

The budget was signed in the presence of the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, the national chairman of the governing All Progressives Congress (APC), John Odigie-Oyegun, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal, and a few other witnesses.

It would be recalled that the budget was sent back to the National Assembly three times due to several claims and counter-claims from both the executive and legislative arms, each accusing the other of padding the budget. The budget was initially submitted during a joint session of the National Assembly on December 22, 2015 and work on the document began after the National Assembly resumed its duties after the Christmas holidays.

The National Assembly had unanimously approved a budget of N6.06 trillion from the initial N6.08 trillion and sent it to the presidency with the highlights but failed to attach the details. In view of this, the president declined to assent it until he saw the bill in full. The details were made available later but proved to be padded, thereby forcing the presidency to return the budget for readjustments. Key projects were also removed from the budget such as the Lagos –Calabar railway project.

Just last week, a meeting was held with the leadership of the national assembly after which a committee was formed to look at all “grey areas” in the budget and send to the president for his assent.

This is a huge sigh of relief for Nigerians  affected by the hardship caused by the non-passage of the budget. Several undertakings such as abandoned road projects can now be fixed. This also comes 23 days to the one year anniversary of President Muhammadu Buhari’s assumption of office.