Nigerian journalist falsely claims USAID budget larger than CIA, State Department combined

“The budget for USAID is more than that of the CIA and the States Department put together. It is between 40 and 50 billion dollars annually. Essentially, the USAID functions as a sort of slush fund of the US intelligence community (sic),” Hundeyin said in an online interview with Nigerian broadcaster News Central on February 16, 2024.

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Screenshot showing the false post, taken February 19, 2024

Hundeyin was a guest on the broadcaster’s morning show.

At the start of the two-minute video, Hundeyin called USAID “basically a law unto itself” and described it as a terrorist “slush fund” that enjoys a larger annual budget than what the CIA and State Department together receive from the government.

He published a longer segment of the interview a day later on his X account, which has more than a million followers.

Hundeyin is the founder of a newsletter covering West African politics and is an ardent critic of the Nigerian government. He is currently based in Ghana and has claimed his life would be in danger if he returned home because of his work as a journalist (archived here). 

Hundeyin has been the subject of previous debunks here and here (archived here).

His latest claim about USAID funding is also false, according to online fiscal data.

Foreign aid suspension

AFP Fact Check searched government records and found that the State Department’s budget for 2024 was $87 billion. The year before it was $84 billion, slightly up from $83 billion in 2022. In 2021, it was $80 billion (archived here).

A comparison shows the USAID budget for the fiscal year 2024 was $44 billion, $50 billion in 2023, $47 billion in 2022 and $37.4 billion in 2021 (archived here).

On its own, the State Department’s funding is almost twice what USAID has received.

The CIA budget, meanwhile, is considered top secret and access is restricted on grounds of national security (archived here).

But, even if Hundeyin was privy to the figures, they would serve to further repudiate his claim.

Shortly after his inauguration on January 20, 2025, Trump signed an executive order implementing a 90-day pause in US foreign development aid, pending a review (archived here). 

The funding freeze has disrupted various global humanitarian aid efforts and impactfully put almost all of the USAID employees on leave (archived here). 

The move is being challenged by labour unions and the opposition Democrats, who say the president needs approval from the legislature to shutter a government agency. 

Despite this, the Trump administration has moved to fold the aid agency into the State Department (archived here and here). 

From Africa to Latin America, governments are scrambling to fill the shortfalls caused by the freeze on aid funding from the US (archived here and here).

Terror funder

The interview with Hundeyin also covered an allegation by Republican lawmaker Scott Perry that USAID funded global terrorist organisations like Boko Haram. 

Active in Nigeria since 2009, Boko Haram insurgents have killed thousands of people and displaced millions, especially in the country’s northeastern region.

Perry’s accusation came during the inaugural hearing of the Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency on February 12, 2025 (archived here). 

Responding to Perry’s accusation, the US ambassador to Nigeria Richard Mills told local media on February 19 there is no evidence USAID funded Boko Haram or any terrorist group (archived here and here). 

The US embassy in Nigeria posted a statement on its website further explaining it had comprehensive monitoring and evaluation systems in place to help verify that aid reached its intended recipients (archived here).

Since USAID's operation has been under scrutiny, it has been the target of significant disinformation (see here and here).