Akwa Ibom State has published only three pages of its budget implementation report for the first and second quarters of 2025, effectively hiding important spending details.
Despite the state’s lack of fiscal accountability, Umo Eno, the governor of Akwa Ibom, won the Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF) Governor of the Year award for “leadership, transparency, and achievements under the ARISE Agenda” on Thursday.
The state’s publication omits the detailed breakdowns usually expected in such reports, such as budget performance by ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs), functional and administrative classifications and economic categories of expenditure.
Instead, it contains only lump-sum figures for recurrent and capital spending. According to the report, recurrent revenue between January and June 2025 totalled N579.04 billion. Capital expenditure reached N179.76 billion, or 27.4% of the N655 billion target.
But as far as earnings and spending information are concerned, this was all the state published.
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WHAT THE LAW SAYS
The Akwa Ibom Fiscal Responsibility Law (2020) is explicit about the obligation to produce and publish detailed reports. It states:
“(1) The Commissioner responsible for State budget, through the State Budget Office, shall monitor and evaluate the implementation of the annual budget with respect to recurrent estimates, all receipts and payments, assess the attainment of fiscal targets by recurrent expenditure and report thereon on a quarterly basis to the Board and the Finance and Appropriations Committee of the House of Assembly.
(2) The Ministry of Economic Development shall monitor and evaluate the implementation of the annual budget with respect to capital estimates, assess the attainment of fiscal targets and report thereon on a quarterly basis to the Board and the Finance and Appropriations Committee of the House of Assembly.
(3) Each of the foregoing ministries shall cause a summary of their reports to be prepared and submitted to the Board, published in the mass and electronic media and place a full copy on their respective websites, not later than thirty days after the end of each quarter, if no other deadline is provided for in the regulations.”
The phrase “each of the foregoing ministries” — referring to the Ministry of Budget and the Ministry of Economic Development — places a clear legal obligation on both agencies to produce full quarterly reports on recurrent and capital spending.
Such reports should include a breakdown by MDAs, as each ministry, department and agency is allocated specific funds under both recurrent and capital budgets.
Without these details, citizens cannot track whether budgeted projects and services have been delivered or not.
FIJ contacted the Akwa Ibom State Budget Office to ask why the reports were not published in full. The office said the documents already contained the relevant revenue and expenditure information.
The official who answered the call also advised the reporter to contact the Commissioner for Budget, adding that the published figures were all the state was willing to release.
BAD TRANSPARENCY RECORD
Akwa Ibom is infamous for budget transparency issues.
The 2024 Open Index Report by the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID) ranked the state among 16 in Nigeria that suppress administrative transparency and restrict access to public information.
The state was also classified as one of the 12 states notorious for inhibiting press freedom and freedom of information in the country.
According to the July report, the state had not domesticated the Freedom of Information Act or created similar mechanisms for public accountability.
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In the index the state scored 47.81% against a national average of 50.51% mostly because it does not proactively publish budgets, contracts, or policy documents, and often ignores or delays FOI requests.
In May, the Akwa Ibom government denied a media report claiming it received N653.6 billion in revenue in the first quarter of 2025, despite publicly available data suggesting otherwise.
PRAISE FROM THE NGF
The NGF, however, praised Governor Eno’s “leadership style” and “fiscal prudence” while presenting the Governor of the Year award to him, saying Akwa Ibom topped state-by-state performance charts in governance and development delivery.
“In a State-by-State comparative analysis, Akwa Ibom came out top,” NGF representative Abba Gambo said.
The post Akwa Ibom Hides Spending Details in 3-Page Budget Report Again appeared first on Foundation For Investigative Journalism.