State coffers are swelling, yet pensioners wait, schools crumble, hospitals and roads decay. As FAAC billions flow, Nigerians are asking their governors: where is the money, and what has it bought? writes Festus Akanbi
For a retired teacher awaiting gratuity, a bigger allocation means little until payment arrives. For parents whose children learn beneath leaking roofs, revenue growth acquires meaning when classrooms improve. Across Nigeria, the widening gap between government receipts and household experience is raising sharper questions for state governors: what, precisely, has the FAAC windfall bought?
The pressure is evident in interventions by organised labour and civil society, alongside increasingly contested assessments of state performance. Abuja remains the principal destination for public anger over economic hardship. Yet rising transfers are making it harder to discuss deteriorating local services without examining the finances of the governments responsible for them.
The latest distribution illustrates the resources involved. The official statement for September revenue, distributed in October 2026, put total FAAC disbursement at N2.428 trillion. States received N799.872 billion, councils N560.660 billion and oil-producing states another N236.049 billion in derivation. That brought the states’ combined allocation, including derivation, to approximately N1.036 trillion for that distribution alone.
Annual figures reinforce the scale. An analysis of National Bureau of Statistics disbursement data put states’ receipts, including derivation, at N8.934 trillion in 2025, against N6.533 trillion in 2024. The increase was N2.4 trillion, or 36.74 per cent. These are total receipts, however; calling the entire sum an additional windfall would exaggerate the gain.
For governors, the political difficulty lies in the relationship between the reforms that enlarged public receipts and the pressures those reforms imposed on families. Subsidy removal released resources previously absorbed by petrol support, while exchange-rate depreciation increased the naira value of dollar earnings. Households, meanwhile, faced dearer transport, food and other necessities.
This has created a demanding accountability bargain. Citizens who absorbed the immediate costs of adjustment increasingly expect its fiscal benefits to appear in public services. A government receiving more money faces questions when pensioners remain unpaid, schools lack teachers or communities continue repairing access roads through private contributions. Revenue announcements now invite comparisons with conditions outside government premises.
Labour’s criticism captures that frustration. “Very few states are doing well in terms of how they deploy what they receive,” NLC Assistant Secretary-General Onyeka Christopher told a newspaper recently. His assessment is a stakeholder judgement rather than an audited national verdict, but it reflects the growing insistence that improved finances should produce recognisable benefits.
Education provides a more concrete test than competing political claims. BudgIT’s 2025 State of States assessment reported education expenditure of N1.61 trillion against N2.41 trillion budgeted, an implementation rate of 66.9 per cent. The roughly N800 billion difference exposes the distance between legislative approval and actual delivery. Announcing a larger education budget does not mean classrooms received the promised resources.
Even expenditure requires closer examination. School construction without teachers, textbooks, sanitation and maintenance can produce impressive photographs alongside weak learning. The relevant comparisons therefore extend beyond buildings to attendance, completion and literacy. For families paying for private alternatives because public provision disappoints, improved state revenue offers little relief unless the quality of available schooling changes.
Today, many states struggle to maintain functional hospitals, while doctor shortages leave patients dangerously underserved. Reports suggest that some state governments neither pay competitive salaries nor recruit replacements for doctors leaving the country. Where public funds are diverted into private accounts abroad, citizens pay the price in needless suffering and preventable deaths.
Pensions and gratuities present an equally direct reckoning because they concern identifiable obligations to identifiable people. Assessment requires the opening arrears balance, new liabilities, actual payments and outstanding beneficiaries. Clearing inherited debts deserves recognition; announcing repeated releases without showing the remaining backlog makes progress difficult to measure. Monthly pension payments and accumulated gratuities also require separate accounting.
Evidence of payments can be scrutinised. The Lagos State Pension Commission reported disbursing N1.08 billion in accrued pension rights to 648 retirees in July 2026. Such disclosures establish an amount and beneficiary count. They do not, by themselves, establish that every retirement obligation has been settled, but they provide a firmer basis for assessment than general assurances about welfare.
Infrastructure raises questions of distribution as well as quantity. A flyover may ease congestion, yet its value must be weighed against impassable feeder roads, drainage failures, and unreliable water supply. Project costs, completion dates, usage and maintenance obligations help establish whether spending addresses pressing needs. Capital expenditure is consequential when assets work and remain useful beyond their commissioning ceremonies.
Local government receipts require particular care. Money allocated to councils cannot simply be counted as revenue available to governors. Residents also need to know who controls spending on the services closest to them. Separating state accounts from council finances would clarify responsibility for failed projects and unpaid obligations. Without that distinction, impressive, combined allocation figures can obscure the institution responsible for delivery, allowing officials at different levels to trade explanations. Meanwhile, communities wait for basic services and pensioners wait for their entitlements.
Fair assessment nevertheless requires acknowledging constraints. Inflation raises construction and service costs; depreciation increases foreign debt obligations in naira; wages and inherited commitments absorb revenue. States also differ in population, terrain and infrastructure deficits. Comparisons based solely on nominal allocations can therefore mislead. Receipts per resident, actual purchasing power and measurable changes from an established baseline offer stronger evidence.
There is also a sustainability problem. Managing Director of Optimus by Afrinvest, Ayodeji Ebo, has warned that dependence on volatile federal transfers exposes state budgets to oil shocks and weakens incentives to develop local revenues. A temporary improvement in receipts can support lasting progress, but recurring commitments built around unusually favourable inflows may become difficult to maintain.
The scrutiny consequently extends to financial disclosure. Monthly receipts need to be reconciled with deductions, debt service, payroll, procurement and actual project payments. Accessible budget implementation reports would allow pensioners, professional bodies and community associations to compare promises with expenditure. Independent audits and legislative oversight become especially important where government publicity supplies more detail than published accounts.
As the next electoral cycle approaches, the FAAC debate is becoming a test of what citizens can verify. The evidence does not support treating every governor as equally effective or equally wasteful. It does support closer examination of a larger public purse. For governors seeking credit for development, the increasingly relevant account is the one written in functioning schools, paid retirement benefits and roads that communities can use.