The protest by the All Indigenous Contractors Association of Nigeria (AICAN) is a stark indictment of how Nigeria manages public funds.
Development Diaries reports that AICAN contractors gathered at the premises of the Federal Ministry of Finance to protest against non-payment of alleged debts.
They have vowed to continue their protests until the federal government clears their alleged outstanding payments, which the group has pegged at N4.7 trillion.
This development, which has been ongoing since 2025, is not really about contractors blocking roads in Abuja, but about a broken budget and procurement system that keeps making promises it cannot keep.
When indigenous contractors say the government issued ‘warrants without cash backing’, they are saying the state approved paper payments but had no money ready to pay.
That turns government contracts into traps, where private businesses carry public risk. At its core, this story questions whether Nigeria’s budget still means anything beyond announcements and documents.
What is failing here is the system that manages public money, with budget execution, procurement rules, and treasury discipline all breaking down at the same time.
In theory, Nigeria’s budget system is ‘if there is no money, there should be no contract’. But in practice, contracts are awarded, projects are completed, and even commissioned, without secured funding.
When payment time comes, contractors are handed warrants that cannot be cashed, and a reason the system keeps failing is fiscal indiscipline. This is even contrary to the Procurement Act of 2007, which states that contracts should only be awarded when funds are available.
What AICAN is alleging shows the opposite pattern, where ministries award contracts first and worry about money later.
Budget warrants, which should signal readiness to pay, have become paper promises, as committees are then set up to ‘look into the matter’, buying time while debts grow from trillions to even more trillions, with no public audit, payment plan, or consequences for those who broke the rules.
Responsibility for this mess cannot be hidden under the vague word ‘government’. Specific institutions played roles.
This is also a rights and livelihood issue, as indigenous contractors borrow from banks to execute government projects, trusting that payment will come.
When it does not, they lose properties, default on loans, lay off workers, and shut down businesses. Artisans, suppliers, and local economies suffer alongside them. The state’s failure to pay shifts the burden to citizens, violating its duty to protect lawful enterprise and economic welfare.
The greater danger is what happens when government credit collapses. A state that issues payment warrants without cash backing becomes an unreliable debtor.
Trust in public contracts disappears, the cost of doing business rises, and local investors retreat. If indigenous contractors are left unpaid while others are allegedly settled, then this also becomes an equity and industrial policy problem.
An economy cannot grow when the government itself cannot be trusted to honour its own contracts.
We should therefore demand a publicly released, independently verified breakdown of the N4.7 trillion debt, showing which MDAs owe what, for which projects, and from which budget years.
Lawmakers should be asked to publish clear budget-versus-payment records for capital projects in 2024 and 2025 so the populace can see where money stopped moving.
Contractors must also organise beyond street protests by pursuing class-action cases and formal petitions, while civil society and the media track who gets paid, who does not, and why.
Institutions, for their part, must act immediately. The government should commission an independent audit of all unfunded contracts since 2023 and sanction any MDA that awarded contracts without secured financing.
The Ministry of Finance should not issue payment approvals without cash to back them, the Budget Office should not allow unfunded commitments, and MDAs should not award contracts without secured funds.
The Bureau of Public Procurement should enforce the law, not look away, and the National Assembly should actually track whether budgets are implemented, not just passed.
