The Movement for the Transformation of Nigeria (MOTiON), a coalition of over 50 social movement groups has urged the National Assembly to pass a pro-poor 2025 budget.
Besides, the group urged the narional law makers to take action on the economic crisis, and release #EndBadGovernance protesters.
A statement by the group on Monday said with inflation climbing from 33.88% in October 2024 to 34.8% in January 2025, and acute food insecurity projected by Famine Early Warning Systems Network between February and May 2025, there is a grave threat to Nigeria’s democracy and stability.
The Convener, Comrade Hauwa Mustapha stated that: “The 2025 budget, in its current form, fails to address the critical needs of millions of Nigerians grappling
with poverty, hunger, and insecurity. The National Assembly must ensure the budget reflects and prioritizes the welfare of the masses, particularly those most affected by IMF/World Bank austerity measures, not a privileged few.”
Mustapha who lamented that with PWC projecting an additional 13 million Nigerians could fall below the poverty line in 2025, said that the proposed budget prioritizes recurrent spending
(₦14.8 trillion, a 19.66% increase), while capital expenditure remains insufficient at ₦14.1 trillion (a mere 12.5% increase). The alarming 96.75% rise in debt servicing further strains the government’s ability to invest in critical sectors.
She lamented that despite the urgent need for investment in human capital, allocations to health, education, and agriculture remain below African Union recommendations (15% for health, 20% for education, and 10% for agriculture), exacerbating Nigeria’s developmental challenges.
MOTiON however warned that failing to address these issues risks further marginalizing millions of Nigerians.
In response to recent allegations of an extortion scheme involving National Assembly members demanding ₦8 million bribes from vice chancellors for budget approvals, Comrade Hauwa declared,
“MOTiON condemns this shocking abuse of power and betrayal of public trust.
Such corruption diverts critical resources from addressing the country’s pressing challenges.”
MOTiON also expressed deep concern over the ongoing persecution of the eleven
#EndBadGovernance protesters facing trumped-up charges of treason and terrorism financing.
Mustapha described this as a blatant attack on democratic rights, adding that: “These unjust charges are a desperate attempt to silence dissent and stifle calls for accountability.”
MOTiON specifically demands that:
“All anti-corruption agencies urgently investigate and prosecute individuals involved in the extortion scheme. Failure to act will deepen public disillusionment with
governance.
“The National Assembly must review the 2025 budget proposal, eliminating
unnecessary expenditures, blocking financial mismanagement, and redirecting
resources to sustainable solutions.
“Budgetary allocations must prioritize essential social services, including healthcare, education, and social protection programmes, to support vulnerable populations and reduce inequality.
“Federal and state governments must implement pro-poor policies that generate
employment, invest in local industries, and stabilize the economy with targeted
subsidies.
“All charges against the #EndBadGovernance activists must be dropped immediately, and the government must end its systemic repression of workers, activists, and social movements.”
Mustapha said: “Given the worsening insecurity, the Federal Government must
strengthen measures to combat terrorism and banditry while addressing the root causes of violence through dialogue and reconciliation. The National Assembly must ensure the budget reflects the needs of the people. This is not the time for business as usual. The collective frustration of Nigerians is nearing a tipping point, and the consequences of continued neglect could be dire for those in power.”
And the EU is and wants to be this for Nigeria, and we feel that the reciprocity is true, and we see Nigeria as a key partner and a major player in Africa and in the world, and we will be so over the next few years. And our new leaders are very much interested in Nigeria, and we hope to have high-level visits and meetings soon to announce, to reinforce our relationship at a higher level. And so my mission, or rather our mission, because it is a teamwork, in fact, is to propose and implement the decisions made by our leaders to strengthen our partnership.
And in fact, it has two aspects. The first aspect of our mission is to give visibility, more visibility, to what we are already achieving in Nigeria and with Nigeria. And the second part is to impose new initiatives and projects to exploit the untapped potential of this partnership.
So we are, in fact, already doing a lot. We have a global and strong partnership between the EU and Nigeria based on shared values, human rights, democracy, rule of law, multilateralism and international law, and based on common interests. And we are very transparent on our interests in Nigeria, in this partnership.
The EU interests see Nigeria consolidate its role as an anchor of stability in Africa and progress on its path towards a peaceful, prosperous, and sustainable future, resting on a robust democracy and allowing all citizens to enjoy their fundamental rights. And we want to help Nigerians in this endeavour, of course, with a full respect for Nigeria’s sovereignty and also with a dose of humility, because especially in such a large country, we cannot pretend that all cooperation is the main driver of change.
It’s the Nigerian policies and efforts who are the main driver of change.
But we feel that all partnership and all action in Nigeria suffers from a lack of visibility still, and also we have to combat, not only Nigeria, in other parts of West Africa and in the world, we have to combat disinformation and misperceptions. Disinformation sometimes fostered by people and foreign interests, but simply, in many cases, misperceptions by people of good faith, but simply uninformed or influenced by fake news or disinformation. And, of course, you have the role as a very important role to play as a clinging house, let’s say, to explain to people the difference between the truth and the fake news.
This strong partnership, in particular, applies to the trade and investment relationship. The European Union is Nigeria’s first trade and investment partner. More or less one-third of stable trade and foreign direct investment in Nigeria is with the EU.
And we have a vibrant European Chamber of Commerce, EuroChamp, and the chairman of EuroChamp is with us also today, and I will give him the floor just after my presentation to tell you a few words about the EuroChamp annual stakeholders conference, which will take place next Thursday in Lagos. And it’s a showcase of the strength of this partnership, you know, of many EU companies. And we are also Nigeria’s first bilateral partner in development cooperation and humanitarian assistance, together with our member states, and we form what we call Team Europe, the EU and the United States.
And we have already launched a campaign to better explain to the Nigerian public what we’re doing in particular through the Global Gateway Strategy, which is a new strategy to connect people in the world and accelerate the green, digital, inclusive transition in the world, in particular in Nigeria. But we want to go further. This is the second aspect of our mission.
We want to impose new initiatives and projects and exploit this anti-potential we have identified in the partnership. And I will give a few examples of how we want to achieve that. First, we would like to better structure the economic relations and dialogue to address and remove the issues that hamper more investments, more European investment in Nigeria and more trade, because currently we have no agreements or no dialogue framework with Nigeria on trade and economic issues.
Through the Global Gateway Strategy I have just mentioned and its investment agenda, we want to focus more on creating jobs and opportunities, especially for young people in Nigeria, building on Nigeria’s great sense of entrepreneurship in sectors like free economy, digital, agri-food and health. And this is actually already doing work. And we want to pay special attention to the north of the country, where there are specific needs, but also a great sense of entrepreneurship again.
And we could witness this a few days ago during our recent trip to the northeast, and we have a package of ongoing new projects there. Now we could also sign science, technology and investment and innovation agreements to foster projects and opportunities in higher education and research. We want also to further strengthen our engagement in peace and security, responding better to Nigeria’s needs and expectations.
Migration is also, of course, a very important issue, and here I think we can develop a migration partnership covering all aspects, the fight against smuggling and trafficking of human beings, legal pathways to respond to both parties’ interests, work with diasporas, and also the issue of readmission and reintegration of migrants not admitted to remain in the EU or stranded in their way to Europe. And we hope very much to finalise the negotiation of a readmission agreement, which could pave the way to a broader partnership. On regional issues and global issues, we want also to issue a closer consultation with Nigeria.
The European Union is already the main supporter of ECOWAS, and of course we have a vested interest in supporting the whole region, the same way as we want to support Nigeria. Development, prosperity and stability of West Africa is also key for us. And finally, on all issues, we want to partner more closely with Nigerian authorities at federal and local state levels.
We want to listen to their expectations, to their strategies and needs, but also listen to civil society and listen to the youth. This is a very young country, and we launched recently a secondary generation of a youth standing board, young people from all across the country, which are a little bit our interlocutors, giving us, among of course other young people we want to engage with, an idea of what young Nigerians think, dream, expect from the EU, and try also to give them some more information on what we believe in. So I will stop here for this initial presentation, and perhaps immediately give the floor to Yanji Weir, the chair of EuroChamp, to tell us a few words about what EuroChamp is.
Thank you, Excellency. It’s a pleasure to be here with you at this press conference, and congratulations for your official appointment that happened yesterday.
EuroChamp to facilitates more
is representing the private sector of the EU delegation, so we are an association that is quite recent.
We have been created seven years ago, and we are representing the EU companies present in Nigeria. Out of the survey we did two years ago, there were 250 companies that are identified as EU companies that are working in Nigeria, and out of that we have a growing number of countries. We have 65 EU companies amongst the big ones, like Total, and many other companies.
And the particularity of this chamber is that, of course, we aggregate all the needs from the EU businesses, and we have 19 EU countries present in Nigeria, and 18 are members of the European Union. Our goal, of course, is to facilitate the business of these EU companies in Nigeria and to attract more EU companies in Nigeria by making the environment more business-friendly for our colleagues in Europe. That is our main task, but we are doing that on various items, like working groups, lobbying, this kind of action that we are doing concretely on the face.
And as I mentioned, like Ambassador, for too long we have our stakeholder conference, which is a very big conference, and this year’s theme is about achieving growth in the post-reform that has been engaged by the government of Nigeria in the past years. So we know that the reform has been done, and now we want to achieve the growth with this reform and attract more investors and develop what we have on ground as a EU company. So we are almost welcome to come to Lagos and join us there for our conference.
It’s on Thursday this week in Lagos. Thank you. Thank you very much.
