Despite receiving increased allocations from the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) in 2024, at least 30 states in Nigeria failed to meet their capital expenditure (Capex) targets and project delivery expectations, FIJ can report.

This conclusion was drawn from an FIJ analysis of the Budget Performance Reports of all 36 states in Nigeria.

Statutorily, these reports must be published within four weeks after the end of a quarter or fiscal year. Most states met this requirement, publishing their BPRs between January 28 and January 31.

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A detailed look at the revenue and expenditure performance in these documents shows that, even with increased FAAC allocations, many states struggled to meet their commitments.

STATES DID NOT MEET PROJECT DELIVERY EXPECTATIONS

Despite the significant inflows, only eight states — Rivers, Delta and Osun, Lagos, Edo, Ekiti, Bauchi, Jigawa and Katsina — achieved strong capital expenditure performance in 2024.

Rivers exceeded expectations with 110.6% of its Capex target, while Delta followed closely with 97%, and Osun came in at 87.1%. These states demonstrated excellent judgement of their revenue capacities and their project delivery strength ahead of the concluded fiscal year.

On the flip side, eight states performed woefully, spending less than 50% of their Capex targets. Taraba State stood out for all the wrong reasons, managing to allocate just 14.2% of its capital expenditure budget in the 2024 fiscal year.

Other states in that category include Ondo, Imo, Plateau, Taraba, Sokoto , Zamfara and Kano.

Many other states fell into the moderate category, spending between 50% and 75% of their Capex targets, while a handful did well but still fell short of meeting their full projections.

REVENUE PERFORMANCES

For some states, their capital expenditure performances can be directly linked to how well they did in terms of total revenue in the 2024 fiscal year.

A review of state revenue performance revealed that five states (Imo, Taraba, Benue, Niger and Jigawa) performed woefully, bringing in less than 50% of their projected revenue.

Imo had the worst showing, generating a mere 20.2% of its expected revenue. This makes it the second time in a row that Imo would have the worst performance in revenue generation among the 36 states.

Meanwhile, eight states exceeded expectations, proving that strong revenue performance is still achievable. Rivers (150.7%), Delta (136.7%) and Bayelsa (110.7%) were among those that outperformed their projections.

Some states had particularly curious performances, considering what the numbers show. Imo State, for instance, had performed woefully on all fronts, despite getting a 205% on the FAAC allocations for the 2024 fiscal year. The state did about just 48% of its Capex.

Other states like Enugu and Kaduna also stand out as examples of states that performed poorly in both revenue generation and capital expenditure despite receiving significantly higher FAAC allocations.

Enugu received 125% of its FAAC allocation but only reached 71.4% of its revenue target, with Capex at a disappointing 50%. Kaduna, with 146.4% FAAC allocation, met just 53.3% of its revenue goal and spent 52.2% of its capital expenditure.

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FIJ did not consider Nassarawa, Borno, Yobe and Ogun states in this analysis because, despite binding legislations, their budget performance documents were not available for public scrutiny at press time.

For Nassarawa State, it had published its 2024 BPR. However, the state government’s website has been inaccessible for 48 hours, contravening the standards set for such webpages by the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA).

Borno, Yobe and Ogun states, on the other hand, had not published their respective BPR(s) at press time.

GROWING DEBT PROBLEM

On paper, woeful capex performances mean that Nigerians across the 36 states did not get the delivery of many project promises — road networks, schools, hospitals, water, healthcare — promised to them.

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Usually, states become increasingly reliant on loans, federal bailouts and international funding to cover these deficits. And with the rising debt profile of N142 million, many states are walking on fiscal tightropes.

If the current trend continues, more states may find themselves unable to meet their recurrent and overhead commitments without external financial interventions.