No Capital Cash Since 2024, Livestock Ministry Says
More than two years after President Bola Tinubu carved out a dedicated Federal Ministry of Livestock Development to anchor his economic diversification drive, the ministry says it has yet to receive any capital release since 2024, exposing a widening gap between the government’s ambitions for the sector and the money committed to realising them.
The Director of Information and Public Relations at the ministry, Henrietta Okokon, confirmed the shortfall this week, saying the absence of capital funds had stalled projects and programmes. According to her, the ministry had “been having issues of funding” and non-releases since 2024, describing the situation as a huge concern given that “livestock is now the new goldmine for Nigeria to look into.”
The account matches figures the ministry presented to the National Assembly earlier in the year. During the 2026 budget defence before the Joint Committee on Livestock Development on 20 February 2026, the Minister of Livestock Development, Idi Mukhtar Maiha, disclosed that of the take-off grant approved for the ministry in 2024, put by different official sources at between N70bn and N75bn, only N20bn had been released. He added that the N10bn appropriated as the ministry’s capital vote for 2025 was not disbursed at all. Under the 2026 proposal, 70 per cent of the 2025 capital allocation was rolled over, bringing the capital budget to N7.14bn, with a further N1.8bn earmarked for overheads.
The disclosures drew sharp reactions from lawmakers. Members of the joint committee, led by its chairman, Senator Shehu Buba of Bauchi South, described the funding pattern as lip service and as inherently contradictory to the government’s stated diversification agenda. One senator went further, alleging possible sabotage in the non-release of the funds, and the committee resolved to escalate the matter to the Presidency.
The complaint carries weight because of the scale of what the government says it wants to achieve. The Federal Ministry of Livestock Development was established on 9 July 2024, one of the few entirely new ministries created under the current administration. In April 2025, the National Economic Council approved an agribusiness and livestock development plan projected to build a sector worth between $74bn and $90bn by 2035, resting on the National Livestock Growth Acceleration Strategy and the earlier National Livestock Transformation Plan of 2018 to 2028.
Against those targets, the sector’s current performance is modest. Maiha told the National Assembly that about 65 per cent of the livestock consumed in Nigeria is imported, despite the country’s large herd and its potential to earn foreign exchange from red meat exports. He cited a red meat export revenue potential of N3.2bn that remains largely untapped because of weak infrastructure, poor funding and systemic bottlenecks, and he compared Nigeria’s position unfavourably with established exporters such as Brazil and Argentina.
Okokon said the ministry had pressed ahead with interventions despite the constraints, pointing to activities in Delta and Cross River states and the distribution of 100 heifers each in Enugu and Delta. She also said the President had approved an expansion of the intervention footprint from 18 to 30 states so that southern states and all geopolitical zones would be carried along.
The funding squeeze is not unique to livestock. Analysis presented by ActionAid Nigeria at a stakeholders’ meeting showed that the combined 2026 agricultural budget allocation by the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory stood at about 4.58 per cent, well below the 10 per cent target Nigeria committed to under the African Union’s Maputo, Malabo and Kampala declarations. Stakeholders noted that weak implementation of approved budgets compounds the problem, with actual capital budget performance at state level averaging around five per cent.
Some external financing is nonetheless flowing into the value chain. The World Bank supported Livestock Productivity and Resilience Support project, known as L-PRES, is running across roughly 20 states, and the ministry has continued to court private and climate finance, including engagements with development partners through 2026. Whether such support can substitute for consistent federal capital releases remains the central question.
For now, the picture is of a flagship ministry operating largely on overheads while the transformational projects meant to reduce meat imports, curb the recurring clashes between farmers and herders through ranching, and open export markets await funds that have not arrived. The government has repeatedly framed livestock as a pillar of its plan to move Nigeria beyond oil. Delivering on that promise, on the evidence of the ministry’s own figures, will depend less on fresh strategies than on releasing the money already appropriated.