By Nnamdi Elekwachi
Abia State is a party to the Open Government Partnership (OGP) initiative which, among other things, aims to achieve fiscal transparency, especially in the public finance sector of subnational governments. OGP states operate open budget whose processes, from planning to execution, are open to public scrutiny with reports on budget performance released quarterly to help groups and individuals track or monitor budget implementation. This encourages a citizen-centred budget and helps to identify implementation gaps.
Because Abia participates in the open government partnership (OGP) initiative, automatically, the state is eligible for the World Bank-backed State Fiscal Transparency Accountability and Sustainability, SFTAS programme which enables states in Nigeria to access grants and technical support of the Bank.
Abia’s budget, as a result, is usually published on the state’s official website. But this has, in recent times, generated controversies, especially when certain subheads or line items in the budget, say ‘travel expenses,’ ‘refreshments’ or ‘conferences’ run in hundreds of millions or billions.
Even the budget of 2023 which Gov. Alex Otti only inherited from his predecessor came under fierce criticism by the opposition. While it was alleged in some opposition quarters that the government had spent over ₦1 billion on entertainment alone, the government maintained that only ₦223 million was spent on entertainment, and that the said sum includes aggregations from the vouchers of seventy-four (74) MDAs, not the executive cabinet alone.
Then came ‘Project Ekwueme.’
In Uzuakoli, sometime in January of this year, the state government said that 200 primary health care centres (PHCs) would be rehabilitated across the 184 wards in the state. The project was named ‘Project Ekwueme,’ to be completed ‘in 100 hundred days,’ according to Enoch Uche, the state commissioner for health. As it is wont to, the opposition kicked and asked questions about the viability and visibility of Project Ekwueme. It is now more than a hundred days, Project Ekwueme has not been completed, though some primary health centres have been renovated and delivered.
The truth is that Otti has a politically charged opposition to contend with. Even road projects like Port Harcourt Road, a long-forgotten 6.8-kilometer road, was at issue over project cost.
Having hitherto failed to fix the same road after decades in government, certain PDP opposition elements criticised the sum of ₦36.5 billion which the state claimed to have sunk into the project. The state held that persistent inflation had taken a toll on the cost of project materials, and that the project cost increased only nominally, not in real terms, due to foreign exchange fluctuations.
Then, there is the ₦54 billion public schools revitalisation saga.
Currently in Abia State, a media war is raging following the budget performance report of the fourth quarter of 2024 (Q4 24) published on the government official website. The sum of ₦54 billion was earmarked for the rehabilitation of public schools across the 17 local government councils in the state. This triggered a public uproar when citizens, civil society groups and, of course, the opposition asked the state government to show proof of rehabilitation by publishing the list of such public schools and their locations.
The 2024 budget, it should be recalled, is the first budget the Otti-led administration designed and implemented using the multi-year medium term expenditure framework (MTEF) of 2024-2026 as a planning tool. It was themed ‘The New Beginning,’ perhaps as the governor’s first independent budget.
In page 42 of the 2024 budget performance report of the fourth quarter of 2024, the government quoted 84% performance on the rehabilitation of schools people are demanding their physical locations. Now, ₦54 billion itself is the 84% ₦65 billion while over ₦45 billion is the 84% of ₦54 billion, and these amounts are larger than what Gov. Otti later quoted was spent by his government on rehabilitation of 61 public schools.
Gov. Alex Otti, during a media outing, stated that only ₦14.43 billion of the ₦54 billion was spent on retrofitting public schools ‘as of March 2025’, being another quarter of another financial year. The governor also said that the sum of ₦54 billion, as captured in the budget performance report, was an ‘estimate’ whose detail remains accessible on the state’s published audited account. The explanation left much to be desired.
While indeed a budget is an estimate of an expected revenue, the performance report thereof is the result achieved in the line of execution, a detailed explanation – in simple words – of expenses covered by the actual revenues (actuals) in the period under review, not items brought forward or rolled over to the next budget.
Budgets in Nigeria usually have a one-year life span, and Abia State, like most states, does not operate a rolling or continuous budget that a line item which ought to have been implemented in its cycle would be captured in a different future time. This is the reason inflation, interest rate, crude production, and other benchmarks are annualised. Besides, the 2025 budget is not the supplementary budget of the 2024 appropriation, neither is it a corrective budget. If, for example, there was revenue variance resulting in a decline, it is the government that will devise an alternative.
Hitherto, Otti had vowed that his government will invest a double-digit percentage of its budget in critical sectors like education and health respectively, affirming that ‘every kobo must count’. This is the reason Project Ekwueme and rehabilitation of schools must count as well. If truly met, the 84% implementation ought to be visible or self-evident like Port Harcourt Road and other projects the administration has completed after two years and counting in office.
Budgets do fall short of the targeted revenue. But in such circumstances, the government either borrows to fund critical capital projects in the budget, scales down and plans within available limited resources, or initiates a public-private partnership (PPP) programme to narrow the funding gap.
Whenever the opposition or citizens ask questions about public spending, the government should provide answers. Questions about the ₦54 billion rehabilitation fund for public schools should neither be deflected nor addressed with scathing and, shall we say, insulting social media posts, like a Facebook post made by the chief press secretary to the state government calling those looking for their ₦54 billion ‘lunatics.’
The media war which sort of created a theatre of blame game between government and opposition virtual forces in Abia is being fuelled in part by media houses. There are media houses owned by politicians, including members of the opposition, and there are pro-government media houses too. Abians are torn between the two warring media camps on the airwaves and online.
Blames had been traded with some media houses accused of bad press, of bias, and of being selective with guest invitation, drawing discussants only from an army of opposition. The government too had been accused of recruiting social media influencers, bloggers and content creators, shunning the mainstream media.
The intensity of the media war notwithstanding, managers of the media communications of Dr. Alex Otti can do better. Calling the opposition, to say nothing of the citizens, lunatics is both uncouth and unprofessional because the same citizens pay taxes that sustain government in office and are the direct employers of Gov. Otti. So, it stands to reason that those working for the governor are servants of the people’s servant.
Recently, the commissioner for information, Okey Kanu, told reporters that the government will no longer tolerate purveyors of fake news and all those working to destroy the image of Governor Otti’s administration. Even when the commissioner stated that the policy will not be implemented in a gestapo style, there is a growing apprehension that this may yet be a sinister move to gag the press, because recently in northern Nigeria a governor shut down a private radio station and even asked the regulatory agency to revoke its broadcasting licence.
Whether the policy will come in the form of a repressive law to stifle dissenting views or not, one thing is certain: freedom of the press must be protected.
The incident between Enyimba TV and Radio Ltd. and the Greater Aba Development Authority, GADA left a sour taste in the mouths of many. In an August 12 release, Enyimba TV, on its official Facebook page, alleged that GADA had flouted an order of a High Court sitting in Aba, issued in suit number A/137/2025, asking GADA and other defendants to maintain status quo pending determination of motion on notice. GADA held that its invasion of the premises of the media house was not in violation of court order, but to stop the station from resuming construction work. On the whole, it smacks of court disobedience.
When citizens harvest falsehoods, half-truths, propaganda, truths, and disinformation from multiple news sources, they suffer information overload and are unable to process information or separate facts from fallacies. The state government should domesticate the Freedom of Information Act of 2011 to enable citizens access information from government offices before focusing on purveyors of fake news. Civil society groups like the Foundation for Environmental Rights Advocacy and Development, FENRAD have sought disclosures on the ₦54 billion through freedom of information (FOI) request, but not much came of it. This bodes ill for a government that wants ‘every kobo to count.’
Also, the necessary fiscal frameworks that act as the guardrails of fiscal discipline are lacking. Abia has yet to domesticate the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2007, in addition to the Freedom of Information Act of 2011. Even the public procurement law of the state which deals with contract processes, from tender to supply, needs to be expanded to capture Abia realities and peculiarities. Bidding should be open and competitive while vendor lists and tender winners should be published.
Legislative tools can ensure accountability and fiscal discipline, especially for the projects Gov. Otti seems to be pursuing. If these are not put in place, the government and the opposition will keep going round in circles. Already, Abia is proposing to develop an inland dry port in Isiala Ngwa and a seaport in Ụkwa. Projects like remodelling of Enyimba Hotel, building of a medical village with features like a helipad and five-star hotel in Owerrinta, and reactivation of moribund industries had been touted.
Although some of the projects involve cost sharing and counterpart funding, if there are no adequate fiscal measures in place, government may end up switching tasks. This carries the potential danger of slowing work or resulting in ‘abandoned projects.’
What Abia at the moment are: Freedom of Information Law, Fiscal Responsibility Law, and a revised Public Procurement Law. This is where to start.
Nnamdi Elekwachi, a public affairs analyst writes from Umuahia.
