President Muhammadu Buhari will present the 2016 budget to the National Assembly today. It is the first budget by his administration which took over the leadership of Nigeria on 29 May.

The N6trillion budget has been christened ‘ a budget of change’, with recurrent expenditure already pared down to 70 per cent, unlike the 2015 budget which had recurrent expenditure at 92 per cent.

Last week, the Senate approved the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) upon which the budget is based.

But doubts lingered over some of the assumptions of the MTEF: oil price being benchmarked at $38, when Brent crude price traded below $36 on Monday, amidst an unprecedented global oil glut and warmer temperature, which will reduce demand for heating oil in the northern hemisphere.