There’s an old saying in government: whoever controls the money controls the decisions. In Nigeria, as in most democracies, that control formally belongs to the legislature, not the President, not the Governor. This is often called “the power of the purse.”
Here’s how it actually works. Each year, the Executive (the President federally, a Governor at state level) prepares a budget proposal; a detailed plan for how much money will come in and where it will be spent. But a proposal is just that: a proposal. It has no legal force until the legislature reviews it, debates it, potentially amends it, and formally approves it as an Appropriation Act (federal) or Appropriation Law (state).
This is a genuinely powerful check. In theory, if lawmakers believe a proposed budget shortchanges healthcare, or overfunds something wasteful, or fails their constituents, they can push back and change it before it becomes binding. Individual legislators can also propose their own line items, this is exactly how constituency projects get into the budget in the first place, sponsored by a specific Senator, Representative, or State Assembly member for their own area.
Once approved, the power of the purse continues through oversight (the job we just covered) — reviewing whether money was actually released and spent as budgeted, rather than sitting unreleased or vanishing into a project that never gets built.
Why should this matter to you as a citizen using GLOW? Because it means every project you see on the platform passed through a real budget approval process at some point — someone voted to allocate that money. When a project is abandoned or never started, you’re not just looking at bad execution — you’re looking at a gap between what the legislature approved and what the Executive actually delivered. That gap is precisely what your report helps document.
Next up: Committees: The Real Engine Room of the National Assembly.