Have you seen the 2026 budgets of some states? They are staggering and mind blowing. Do not get me wrong; I want to see more of those numbers double, even quadruple in a year or two. But more importantly, I want to see the effect on the lives of the people these state governors purport to represent or serve.
When I saw the 2026 defence budget of the United States of America put at $900 billion (don’t bother with searching for your calculator to convert the amount to Naira!), I was alarmed; alarmed at the fact that we (Nigeria, nay Africa) are not in the same world!
Back to our states’ budgets. Next year, more states are going to join Lagos State for the first time in crossing the trillion Naira mark in their yearly budgets. Until this year, Lagos State, perhaps the only economically viable and financially independent state in Nigeria, had the privilege of being the only one with the means to be on the ballot for trillion Naira spend. In 2025, Akwa Ibom (N1.65 trillion), Ogun (N1.055 trillion) and Rivers (N1.48 trillion) states crossed the rubicon.
Come 2026, more states are going to join the big league for the first time. Enugu, Delta, Bayelsa, Kaduna and Kano States are joining the big league. Kaduna’s is just a few billion Naira shy of a trillion Naira, which typically will be adjusted in the course of the year to make the mark. At N986 billion budget, it’s as good as a done deal. Same with Bayelsa with a budget of N998 billion in 2026. Enugu’s budget of N1.62 trillion is a high jump of 66% increase from the 2025’s N971 billion. Delta’s is even more staggering from N979 billion in 2025 to N1.73 trillion in 2026.
Kano’s 2026 budget of N1.368 trillion is shocking when compared with its 2025 budget of N549 billion. It is more than double. Where is the money coming from? What has the state done in just a year to be able to generate such revenue to fund its ambitious budget?
Just for completeness, the Lagos State Government’s 2025 budget of N3.37 trillion will go up to N4.237 trillion next. This does not shield the state from being a chaotic and a sprawling slum. Rivers State’s 2025 budget of N1.48 trillion was endorsed by the governor’s four-man ‘house of assembly’ and mainly ‘implemented’ by a sole administrator following the declaration of state of emergency in the state. Now, governor Sim Fubara, who appears back on the saddle, probably does not know where to take the 2026 budget to.
Ogun State’s 2025 budget of N1.055 trillion has not had much impact on the people. You need to be in the Alagbole, Akute, Ajunwo, Sango, and Ota areas of the state to see how terrible the roads are. Sanitation at Sango and Ota areas is abysmal. But in 2026, it proposes to spend N1.668 trillion.
Akwa Ibom’s 2025 budget was N955 billion but later increased to N1.65 trillion. The N695 billion supplementary budget was primarily to fund purchase of more aircraft for Ibom Air (shouldn’t this highly profitable independently run enterprise be buying its own planes?) and renovation of state house of assembly building. None of these projects have anything to do with the needs of the greater majority of the people of the state. On the surface, the N1.39 trillion budget for 2026 is small compared to the 2025 N1.65 trillion but wait until the third quarter of 2026!
As the so-called democracy started in 1999 grows older, the various state budget documents are getting more opaque. In this wise, the Federal Government is light years ahead in transparency than the states. When eventually signed into law, the Federal Government detailed budget is usually uploaded for any one to access online but not so with the state budgets. What you get is only the executive summary, which cannot help citizens hold governments to account. You cannot perform a deep dive on state budgets because you will hardly get to see the details of their budgets.
I will recall that as far back as 2008, the Akwa Ibom State budget under Governor Godswill Akpabio, with the then Dr. Chris Ekong as the economic development commissioner, was readily available. I will recall seeing all the line items three of which I will not forget: a) Akwa Ibom State University (N4 billion); b) General Administration (N88 billion); c) Governor’s Security (N5 billion). I quickly concluded that with this kind of budgetary thinking, my state would not go far! Seventeen years after, and several trillions of naira down the drain, greater majority of Akwa Ibomites are still wallowing in abject poverty.
Today, it may be easier for you to lay your hands on an Israeli secret document than the budget of your state government. It is top top secret; and we know why. Everything must be done to cover the tracks of our thieving governors. In fact, as far as state budgets go, the title Governor should be changed to Ruler because Nigerians are not being governed but they are being ruled. So, here is my proposition to the National Assembly as it attempts to cosmetically amend the 1999 constitution again and again.
Two main reasons explain why citizens hardly benefit from the huge yearly budget increases they see their governments churn out: outright stealing by government officials and their collaborators and embarking on gigantic, politically motivated projects with very little or negative economic impact on the people.
Several examples abound. Cross River State has yet to recover from the Donald Duke fantasy called the Tinapa project. Several explanations can be advanced for the failure of the project, but none takes away the decades of indebtedness and penury that it plunged the state into. Akwa Ibom State’s nest of champions (Godswill Akpabio International Stadium), said to have been built at a yet-to-be-disputed cost of somewhere between N100 billion and N150 billion then, is just a drain pipe to the state. The state is unable to generate money from the facility just for its maintenance only.
How many state governors have embarked on egoistic airport projects with no planes flying in there. In a year, how many planes take off and land at these airports? Damaturu, Zaria, Yenegoa, Minna, Jalingo, Dutse, Katsina, Kebbi, Gombe, Lafia, Ekiti, etc airports exist side by side with very little flights. Even the governments that built them have since forgotten that such facilities exist in their states.
With the high taxation drive of the Bola Tinubu administration, more money is going into the pockets of subnational governments, and it is making the governors mad. They spend something between 90 percent to 95% of state funds satisfying the wants and lifestyles of 5% of the people, the very elite stakeholders so-called who are at best parasitic and at worst downright evil and dangerous.
The core areas that address the needs of the people and their human capital development such as education, health care, agriculture, electricity, rural development, technical skills development, rural development, water resources, environmental and entrepreneurial skills are neglected.
Is it not an irony that the more money state governments have the poorer the people become? Unfortunately, Nigerians have come to accept this ugly situation. Much of the searchlight and criticism are directed at the federal government while we leave the states to run amok with our commonwealth. It is the current corrupting political system that allows this recklessness to fester while poverty spreads.
Esiere is a former journalist!
