Despite the inability of the Federal Government to pay three months allocations owed the 36 states of the federation, President Goodluck Jonathan on Sunday denied suggestions that the country is bankrupt, saying those who have been making the insinuation have only been playing politics with an important national matter.
Huhuonline.com findings reveals that the Jonathan administration has continued to fail in its fiscal obligation to state governments. Some state chief executives who did not want their names in print told our correspondent that they last received their state monthly allocation in June 2013.
“We have not received allocation for July, August and September; the fact that we are able to pay salaries is a miracle,” one noted.
In spite of the president’s stance, several financial analysts familiar with Nigeria’s current financial doldrums and who monitored Sunday’s media chat, insist that the president is being economical with words.
“If the country is not broke, why has Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala not been able to disburse funds to the states for the past three months?” one said.
Speaking during a presidential media chat ahead of the country’s 53rd Independence anniversary on Tuesday, the president urged politicians to always place the country’s interest above inter-party politics.
“Sometimes, people just play politics with serious issues. Or how can anyone just wake up from sleep to say Nigeria is bankrupt?” Jonathan queried.
“Anybody who talks about Nigeria being broke is just playing politics out of ignorance. In July, due to excess vandalism of pipeline, crude oil sales dropped significantly, and it affected the revenues of the country, so states didn’t get their usual allocation. That was the issue.
“So, it is not that we have never had enough money. It is not that the government did not generate enough revenue. So, if Nigeria is broke, a senior citizen who comes out to say that must come out to give the parameters. And that is why no matter your political interest, you must mind what you say, especially about your own country. This is not about whether you like the president’s face or not.”
Jonathan also commented on the ongoing industrial action of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, offering not the slightest hope that the government would bend over backward to get the youths back to school.
“Crises in developing countries will continue, either at the primary secondary or tertiary level. There was a time during Jerry Rawlings’s tenure when Ghana closed down all universities. I am not saying that is what we will do but it happened somewhere else,” the president said.
“So for ASUU to go on strike and say that government must spend so and so amount is unfair. This administration is the first ever to conduct and inventory of infrastructure lacking all over government tertiary institutions. If we didn’t have it in mind, we would not have taken the inventory. We have started with N100bn. But all these changes cannot happen overnight. So we expect ASUU to come and work with us.
"This particular issue is beyond 2009. We cannot change this thing overnight. We told them, go back and we are releasing N100 billion. This is the first time we are looking into it with serious commitment. Just like the roads. The members of ASUU should look at the commitment of government. We are very sincere. You can't get it overnight. But to say we must close down the other arms of government is not possible,” he said wondering why lecturers from state universities would take part in the strike despite knowing that they do not owe any allegiance to the Federal Government. He said it was time for the government to look at the labour laws in the country.
Jonathan lamented the duration of the strike, and urged ASUU to suspend it in the interest of students.
“It is very unfortunate that ASUU strike has lasted for this long. I want to use this opportunity to call on ASUU to call of the strike,” he said. “They are asking for an allowance of ninety-something billion; and these allowances are supposed to be paid from the internally generated revenues of these universities. Until we get to a point where universities that claim to be autonomous are also autonomous in terms of funding, I don’t think all these will stop, because autonomy without responsibility will eventually lead to crisis; and this is what we are experiencing.
Asked why the government would not just acceded to the demands of the 2009 Agreement with ASUU, which it signed, Jonathan said: “Those who negotiated that agreement didn’t know the implications of certain things they agreed to.
“For example, how can you say assets of the government should be transferred to the government, and universities do not have asset management companies. There are certain things that they themselves know cannot be implemented. How can they say we should transfer assets of government to the universities? What happens to the Armed Forces?
On his contentious re-election ambition, the president maintained a reticent stance, saying his decision or otherwise to run should not be allowed to define the 2015 elections.
“It is not yet time. In a normal society, whether I am contesting or not should not be an issue,” he said.
“If anybody wants to contest, Jonathan’s decision to contest or not should not be a factor. If you want to be president, you can begin your preparations towards achieving it, whether or not I will contest. Anyone who says Jonathan must tell us whether he will contest or or anyone who says Jonathan must step down before he can decide to contest is not serious about the Presidency.”
Jonathan, who spoke on a wide-ranging number of national issues, also refuted claims that the recent sack of ministers was connected to loyalties to the G-7 governors or sympathies for the breakaway faction of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). He explained that the sack was borne out of the need to inject people with fresh ideas to meet his electoral promises to the people of the country.
Illustrating his action with a football team and the coach, he said all that concerns the coach is scoring goals and when that is not happening, he changes his players. He also recalled that he had sacked some cabinet members in the past.
“It had nothing to do with G-7 governors. I dropped the minister of defence before. What of the minister that was recommended by Godswil Akpabio or the minister of environment, who is from my vice president’s state?
“Some of the dropped ministers are from states where the governors are considered to be favourable to me. I always says it is Nigerians first. We are building institutions and not individuals. People should be interested in how government works and not who does the work. From when Obasanjo entered, have there been issues with sack of ministers? Why should Jonathan's own be an issue?”
Denies Signing One Term Agreement
Jonathan also denied ever signing any agreement with anybody to serve for one-term as President of the country, urging those claiming he signed the pact to produce the document.
“I never signed agreement with anybody. If I signed agreement with anybody, they would have shown you,” he said adding that the only thing he remembers is his suggestion for a single term of seven years.
“I was at Addis Ababa and that was where I suggested the single-term. To be more productive, a president should have seven years. But to say I have signed agreement, they should show you the agreement.”
Concerning the current ranting of Asari Dokubo that there would be war if the president is not allowed a second term in office. An evasive Jonathan said he could not speak for anybody, adding that those commenting could continue to say what they like.
On the challenges of electricity in the country and the wisdom behind the privatisation of the power distribution companies, he said generating thousands of megawatts without adequate distribution would be foolhardy. He said currently, his government is not keen about generating more megawatts, since with the distribution, the issue of megawatts increase would be successfully handled.
He also noted that the number of aides of political officers in the country is not the reason for the huge cost of governance, but the bloated civil service.
“If you are a minister, you need people that are competent to help you. This is how it is all over the world. Whenever I travel, people complain that I travel with a lot of people, but I travel with the least number of people compared to some other presidents. For you to function as a president, you need a number of people.
“There are some countries where, even if the president is sick, the system still runs. All these aides of governors and presidents are not the problem of the country but the parastatals that have a lot of overheads. If you decide to retrench now, they would say there are some countries where citizens do not go to work and earn money.”
President Jonathan also criticised Nigerians for heaping every problem in the country on corruption. According to him, corruption is not even the major problem bedevilling the country.
“If everybody continues to say the problem of Nigeria is corruption, then the feeling is that corruption is our major problem. There are different parameters that define why we are not where we are, but even when you ask the civil society group, they would say it is corruption that is the first.”
He admitted that although corruption is as old as the society and almost everywhere, it is the third of the factors militating against doing business in the country and not the first as people are wont to make it seem.
He also said one of the ways his government had been fighting corruption could be seen from the distribution of fertilisers. He also said the country has an independent judicial system devoid of interference by the president.
“I have also set up a committee including myself, the Chief Justice, Appeal Court President, the Vice President, Senate President, Speaker of the House of Representatives and the anti-graft agencies to see how we can tackle the issue of corruption. You say the corruption perception is so high, yet people are rushing to Nigeria.”
However, the president agreed that the country has various challenges summing into insecurity. He identified the Boko Haram as the greatest threat to the country, saying tits activities have affected the country in various ways.
“We have issues in all parts of the country, but the particular issue with the Boko Haram is the use of terrorism and suicide bombers. People said we must dialogue with the Boko Haram and we set up a committee and up till now, they are still in dialogue. Boko haram started since 2009, but the excesses started with the bombing of mami-market, the UN building and the police headquarters in Abuja.”
Jonathan justified the killing of about seven people in an uncompleted building in the Apo area of Abuja, the country's capital, revealing that there was a security report that the Al-Qaeda group was going to launch attacks on cities across the world in commemoration of the September 11 attack on America.
According to him, Nigeria's security outfits became pro-active, arrested some people who made useful confessional statements and led the security to where their weapons were hidden. In the course getting to the place, the security agents met a confrontation from the sect members, which led to the deaths. He, however, agreed that innocent people could have been part of those killed in the cross-fire.
He agreed that the activities of the group had recently increased again, promising that his government would do everything to curb the sect activities as he is personally pained by the death every citizen.
He justified his earlier statement that members of the sect had infiltrated his government, recalling that a judge from Kano State had to be retired and a senator was recently being prosecuted for their relationship with the sect, but said he had no knowledge of the existence of the sect leader, Abubakar Shekau, who is believed to have resurfaced in a video after being declared dead by the Joint Task Force.
“I don't know whether he is dead or alive. I am telling you that I, the president, don't know if he is dead or alive.”
On the massive oil theft going on in the country, President Jonathan said top Nigerians are involved in the criminal activity since poor men cannot export such amount of stolen crude.
“The oil theft started on a small scale and if government had acted at that time, it would have been easy for us. Just like Boko Haram, it didn't start last year. I was the vice president when Yusuf was killed and because it was not well handled, it became like a cancer. But I assure Nigerians that we are working seriously on it.
“Crude oil theft is not done by poor people. Most refineries abroad do not take crude oil from everybody and anybody. That is why we are pleading with presidents in other countries to reject crude oil from unknown sources. You see small boys, but those that are seriously involved are the big people.
Those who export the crude oil are not poor people,” said the president, who was evasive on the questions raised about the Ministry of Petroleum.
He also denied that the Federal Executive Council had become a massive contract-awarding outfit, saying there are other things the council deals with it apart from the award of contracts.
The president ended the media chat by congratulating Nigerians on the 53rd Independence anniversary and promising to honour past and present heroes of the country, including Taiwo Akinkunmi, the man who designed the Nigerian national flag.
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The Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ola Olukoyede, has offered whistleblowers between 2.5 per cent and 5 per cent of recovered stolen Nigerian assets held abroad for information that leads to their recovery.
Olukoyede disclosed this on Wednesday while delivering a lecture at the Cambridge International Symposium on Economic Crime in the United Kingdom.
According to him, the ability of EFCC operatives to trace assets, cooperation from the judiciary and access to credible intelligence have played important roles in the commission’s success in securing non-conviction-based forfeiture orders.
He also described the EFCC as having some of the best investigators in the world and stressed the importance of protecting and encouraging whistleblowers.
He said anyone with credible information about stolen Nigerian assets taken or hidden anywhere in the world could receive between 2.5 per cent and 5 per cent of the recovered assets as an incentive, with payment made after the recovery.
Olukoyede further revealed that the EFCC had forfeited cash and assets worth more than $500 million to the Federal Government within the past three years.
He cited several cases involving the recovery and forfeiture of assets, including cases linked to a former Chairman of the Central Bank of Nigeria and a former Attorney-General of the Federation.
The EFCC chairman explained that the commission is legally empowered to seek the forfeiture of suspected proceeds of crime by applying to the High Court for an order. He said the process is similar to procedures used in countries such as Australia and Canada.
Olukoyede also recalled a case involving an aircraft allegedly acquired by an individual who was accused of receiving about $30 million in bribes in connection with a power project. He said the aircraft was forfeited about three months ago and had subsequently been added to the presidential air fleet.
He also referred to a property containing about 753 housing units that was forfeited from a former CBN governor, against whom the EFCC has filed criminal charges in three courts.
Speaking about the immediate past Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, Olukoyede said the EFCC opened an investigation following allegations of abuse of office. He claimed that investigators traced about 57 properties to Malami and that approximately 48 of them had been forfeited.
The EFCC chairman further mentioned the forfeiture of a private university allegedly linked to a director in the Federal Ministry of Health. According to him, the official voluntarily surrendered the property following the commission’s investigation.
Olukoyede said the measures demonstrate the importance of asset tracing, international cooperation, credible intelligence and whistleblower protection in the fight against financial crime and the recovery of stolen public assets.
The Dangote Petroleum Refinery has raised concerns over the growing volume of imported petrol entering Nigeria, warning that it could be forced to export more of its own production if the trend continues.
The refinery said imported Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) made up roughly 43 per cent of the petrol supplied to the Nigerian market in July. It argued that the development was creating serious difficulties for a domestic refinery with the capacity to produce enough fuel for the country.
Dangote Refinery explained that it has maintained sizeable petrol reserves since commencing operations to ensure that consumers across Nigeria have access to a reliable supply. Keeping those reserves, it noted, requires substantial expenditure on storage, transportation and working capital.
However, the refinery said the continued granting of import licences without adequate information about expected import volumes has made it increasingly difficult to determine how much petrol should be produced and stored for the local market.
The company said holding large quantities of petrol becomes financially burdensome when there is no certainty about how much imported fuel will compete for the same market. It therefore considers exporting surplus stocks a more commercially viable option than allowing them to remain in storage indefinitely.
According to the refinery, increased exports in recent months should not be interpreted as evidence that Nigeria lacks sufficient refining capacity. Instead, the exports are being driven by excess stock resulting from unpredictable import volumes.
Dangote Refinery maintained that it remains fully committed to supplying the Nigerian market and has the capacity to meet or surpass the country's petrol requirements. It said its decision to export surplus products was aimed at managing inventory efficiently and avoiding unnecessary storage and financing expenses.
The refinery also warned that market disruptions caused by excessive imports could make it harder for domestic refiners to accurately predict demand. Any resulting supply problems, it said, should not automatically be blamed on local refineries.
It urged regulators and other industry stakeholders to improve transparency around petrol imports and strengthen coordination within the downstream petroleum market.
The company argued that policies that give greater support to domestic refining would help Nigeria reduce its dependence on imported fuel, conserve foreign exchange, strengthen energy security and maximise the economic benefits of investments in local refining infrastructure.
Dangote Refinery said it remains prepared to supply the country but stressed that a more predictable and transparent market environment is necessary for efficient production and inventory management.
Business
In The Spotlight
A group of heartless carpetbaggers have captured the Nigerian state, and it appears that they, their biological and political descendants, will hold the levers of government and access to Nigeria’s commonwealth for a long time to come.
When you consider news reports of how previous and current state actors steal public funds, buy choice properties in the toniest districts of Nigeria’s major cities, acquire private jets, and even establish private universities, you wonder if some people have more than two heads, to adopt a Yoruba phrase.
Either because of an inability to deliver the greatest good to the greatest number of Nigerian citizens, or by intention, the political elite have kept the people poor, causing them to depend on the largeness of heart of the same elite to meet their existential needs.
That explains why poor, downtrodden, and unconnected Nigerians eagerly collect crumbs of measly N5,000, rice, gari and whatever else the politicians offer to obtain their election votes or acquiescence after rigging the elections.
When watching an economically disadvantaged individual tell a politician who is seeking to become a legislator the good news that his wife just had a new baby, and he needed to prepare for the naming ceremony, it felt like the oppressed poor were enabling his oppressor to further oppress him.
It was like the classic case of Stockholm syndrome, of victims collaborating with their “captors” to cement the oppressive stranglehold that they already had over the state and the commonwealth of the nation, thus unwittingly arresting their own future development.
A running mate to a former governorship candidate in a Southwestern state hilariously regaled Nigerians with the story of how constituents would have raided all the alcoholic drinks in his refrigerator in the early hours of the morning, even before he woke from the hectic campaign tour of the previous day.
The political elite have practically cornered the Nigerian state for themselves, children, tribesmen and acolytes, and have devised a way to admit only those that they have found to be loyal, or pliable, into their rank of oppressors.
The oppression of the citizens of Nigeria is easily accomplished because of the high illiteracy level amongst the poor masses. The use of the weapon of illiteracy is more evident in Northern Nigeria, whose political leaders somehow turn a blind eye to the illiteracy and underdevelopment of their people.
In 2024, UNICEF revealed that out of Nigeria’s 18.3 million out-of-school children, about 12.1 million, or 66 per cent, were resident in the Northwest and Northeast regions. Yet, instead of expanding educational facilities and opportunities, some Northern governors are arranging mass weddings for children who are hardly out of their teen years.
And this is not to deny the weaponisation of illiteracy even in Obafemi Awolowo’s Western Region, which is regarded as the Athens of Nigeria, after its pre-Independence head start of free, universal and compulsory primary school education.
As if he had a premonition that Nigeria’s so-called democrats would eventually compromise education, to the detriment of the lowest and marginalised masses, that Karl Marx described as the “lumpen proletariat”, French political thinker Montesquieu argued a long time ago that “It is in a republican government that the whole power of education is required.”
Western Nigeria’s free education scheme was gradually abandoned from the days of the Second Republic when some Yoruba members of President Shehu Shagari’s political party knocked it off its bottom with the argument that “qualitative” education was better than “free” education.
It is more than a shame that a free, universal and compulsory primary school education scheme was abandoned under President Shagari, who not only was a trained teacher, but had a career as a teacher before his political career.
Awolowo had warned Nigeria’s political elite with the following quip: “The children of the poor that you failed to educate will not let your children sleep peacefully.” The insecurity that currently occurs in nearly every part of Nigeria only drives Awolowo’s point home.
Probably the realm of the Nigerian republic that has been most complicit with the carpetbagger political elite is the media, whose members either serve the elites as press secretaries who kill media brushfires, or editors who either run planted stories, or spike stories that the politicians do not want published.
The media is so compromised that it can hardly perform those responsibilities assigned to it by Section 22 of the Nigerian Constitution, which are to “be free to uphold the fundamental objectives contained in (Chapter II of the Constitution) and uphold the responsibility and accountability of the Government to the people.”
Some apologists have argued on behalf of the media that the political elite have so run the economy aground that the media, which can only thrive as commercial enterprises within Nigeria’s quasi-capitalist economy, cannot stay afloat, especially with the devastating inroads that the digital media are making into their audience, advertising revenue and profit.
The absence of regional economies, the argument goes, prevents the emergence of regional newspapers that can thrive on advertising revenues from regional companies, the way it obtains in the economies of North America and Western Europe. Many Nigerian newspapers, that are essentially regional, often pretend to be national to receive advertising revenue from companies whose market is national.
Two other collaborators of the political elite are the election management agencies and the judiciary at both the national and sub-national levels of government. The conspiracy between these agencies and the political elite is almost like that of Siamese twins conjoined by the belly button.
After the election management agencies may have deliberately bungled (especially) governorship and legislative house elections, and declared false reports, the losers, who felt that they won the election, would then approach the temple of justice, with significant financial inducement to ask for justice(?).
From that point on, the justice that both contestants hope to corruptly obtain could swing according to the heft of the naira in the Ghana-must-go bag that they will be hauling into the chambers of the denizens of the corrupted judiciary.
Thus, the “award” of electoral justice is “a matter of cash”, to quote Basi, the protagonist of “Basi & Co”, the television sitcom produced by environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, who himself was denied justice from the judiciary that served the regime of General Sani Abacha, Nigeria’s most notorious military dictator.
In Nigeria, the lines of separation of powers that demarcate the duties of the three arms of government –the legislative, executive and judiciary– and the checks and balances that empower each arm to check the others have become almost irredeemably blurred.
As legislators use constituency projects as a ploy to carry out the functions of the executive, the president issues executive orders that are essentially legislative in nature. Though the judiciary does not perform the duties of the other arms, it fails to check them as it indulgently winks at their excesses.
If those who are regarded as Nigeria’s political elite really know what is in their enlightened self-interest and would like to protect the future of their descendants from what Thomas Hobbes described as a short, brutish and nasty existence, they will use their current privilege to correct the evil they have done to Nigerians.
They must urgently redeem the future before it delivers violence against their children.
By Lekan Sote
In The Spotlight
Lagos alone is worth more than Botswana, Namibia, Rwanda and Mauritius combined.
Let that sink in.
With an economy of N41.17tn — about $102bn in 2021 — Lagos State dwarfed the entire gross domestic products of four countries. Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Delta and Bayelsa sit on oil wealth that funds nations. Ogun, Anambra and Imo churn out goods, services and commerce that would make small economies jealous.
By the numbers, Nigeria’s states are giants.
But walk the streets of Lagos, and you will still find mothers cooking with firewood. Drive through Port Harcourt, and you will see communities drinking water polluted by the same oil that makes the state’s GDP glow. Visit Umuahia, Abeokuta, or Minna and ask the average trader what “trillion-naira economy” means to her dinner table.
The answer is: nothing.
That viral video telling you “10 Nigerian states are richer than countries” is both true and a lie. True, because the 2021 BudgIT figures don’t lie — Lagos at N41.17trn, Rivers at N7.96trn, and so on. A lie, because those numbers are GDP, not prosperity. They measure how much economic activity happens _in_ a place, not how much of it reaches the people who live there.
A country with $7,778 GDP per capita, like Botswana, will still feed its citizens better than a state with $102bn in total output but $2,058 per capita, like Nigeria. A state can host a port, an oil rig, and a tech hub, yet fail to build a hospital that works.
So, the real question isn’t “Which state is bigger than which country?”
The real question, and the one our governors should lose sleep over, is this: When your economy is bigger than a nation, why are your people still living like they have nothing?
In this edition of The Bottomline, we follow the money from GDP to the gutter — and ask why Nigeria’s trillion-naira states have not become trillion-naira lives.
The viral numbers are not new. They were lifted straight from BudgIT’s 2022 State of States report and reflected 2021 estimates: Lagos at N41.17tn, followed by Rivers at N7.96tn, Akwa Ibom at N7.77tn, Imo at N7.68tn, Delta at N6.19tn, Anambra at N5.14tn, Ondo at N5.10tn, Ogun at N5.03tn, Bayelsa at N4.63tn and Niger at N4.58tn.
The trick is in the timing. To pitch those 2021 figures against 2025 country GDPs is statistical fraud. Nigeria has since rebased. The NBS moved the base year from 2010 to 2019, and the whole map shifted. Lagos itself has moved on: its 2025 _Lagos Economic Development Update_ puts the state at N43.06tn in 2023, with forecasts of N54.77tn for 2024 and N66.47tn for 2025. Those are projections, not fresh NBS post-rebasing observations, but they tell you the direction: up.
There is no debate that Lagos is Nigeria’s economic engine. From a colonial port to federal capital until 1991, it never lost momentum. Today, trade, manufacturing, ports, telecoms, tech, entertainment, real estate and finance all cluster in just 3,345 square kilometres. Compare that footprint to Botswana’s 581,730 sq km, Namibia’s 825,615 sq km, Rwanda’s 26,338 sq km, and Mauritius’ 2,040 sq km. Yet in 2021, Lagos’ $102 billion economy was several times larger than Botswana’s $19.9bn, Namibia’s $15.1bn, Rwanda’s $16.4bn, and Mauritius’ $16.2bn, according to 2025 World Bank figures.
That comparison is legitimate. The conclusion people draw from it is not.
GDP tells you how much value was produced in a territory. It does not tell you who owns it, who earns it, or whether the roads work, the lights stay on, or the hospital has drugs.
A state can run a trillion-naira economy and still have mothers boiling water on firewood. A country can have a smaller GDP and deliver a better life. Look at the per capita numbers: Botswana at $7,778, Namibia at $5,309, Mauritius at $11,819. Nigeria sits at about $2,058. Even Rwanda, at just $773 per capita, has pushed its $3-a-day poverty rate down to 38.6 per cent — proof that size is not destiny.
The oil states expose the fraud most brutally. Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Delta and Bayelsa rank high because petroleum inflates their GDP. But oil wealth does not flow into state coffers in equal measure, and it certainly does not flow into household wallets. BudgIT’s own fiscal sustainability index proves this. In 2022, Rivers topped overall fiscal performance despite Lagos having the biggest economy. A big economy without revenue discipline, jobs, and services is just a billboard.
Nigeria does not have a GDP problem. We have a translation problem.
We have pockets of enormous economic power. Lagos. Rivers. Akwa Ibom. Ogun. Anambra. Delta. The output is real. What is missing is the bridge between that output and ordinary life.
Until economic activity creates real jobs, until IGR rises and addiction to federal allocation falls, until infrastructure supports production instead of strangling it, those trillion-naira figures will remain a cruel joke.
So let the video go viral. Let Lagos be “bigger than Botswana”.
But governors, commissioners, and citizens should ask only one question:
If my state can outproduce a country, why can’t it out-deliver a decent life for the people who call it home?
Until we answer that, we are not rich. We are just big.
By Raphael Mbamalu