By Muazu Abari
The beauty of democracy, lies not only in the ability of the electorates to elect their leaders, but democracy also provided the people with the constitutional remit to hold these leaders to account especially in the disbursements of public funds.
Responsible leaders don’t wait for their citizens to ask for accountability before being accountable to them. They always make the system open to scrutiny without being prodded to do so.
This leadership requirement is predicated on the fact that, democracy itself thrives on accountability and transparency, and once you divorced these principles from any democratic governance, then the system has lost its essence, value and integrity.
Regrettably, this opaque system has become the norm rather than the exception in Nasarawa State since the coming of Governor Sule. It is apt to say that based on the prevailing manner the governor runs the state, he apparently doesn’t give a damn about this fundamental principle of democracy.
For a fact, one can say with absolute certainty that accountability in Nasarawa State, has taken flight and replaced with political sycophancy to the extent that every demand for accountability is always seen by government and its bootlickers as an affront on the governor and his misguided administration thereby reducing governance to personal enterprise.
In fact, Nasarawa State has never had it so bad in the area of transparency and accountability like under this government amidst unprecedented spike in revenues from both the IGR and the federation account.
What the government failed to realize is that, the legitimate demand for accountability and how billions of naira belonging to the people of Nasarawa State, is being spent or wasted on frivolities and misplaced priorities cannot be suppressed.
This democratic right would continue to resonate as long as this administration did not come out clean to explain to the citizens how their common wealth is being managed in the nearly eight years of this administration.
Any leader or government that is afraid to be accountable to the citizens has no business in public office. Afterall, the resources belong to the people and they have the absolute right to know how their resources is being utilized by their leaders.
But going by it’s posture, it is glaring that Governor Sule’s administration has maintained a deaf ear to all patriotic calls on his government to be accountable to the people of the state, ignoring voices of reasons and insulting the collective sensibilities of the people of Nasarawa State.
The questions to ask the governor is why should a man who always assume a holier than thou posture will become jittery of accountability? Is he hiding any skeleton somewhere in his inner recess? What happens to his so-called mantra of transparency and accountability which become the administration’s popular rhetoric? Is it another empty noise which has become the past time of governor Sule’s the administration?
When Governor Abdullahi Sule took over the state, he has preached an innate desire to ensure accountable leadership at the slightest opportunity. He has made so much noise about his administration commitment to transparency and accountability in running the affairs of the state, quoting Bible and Quran to hoodwink the people of Nasarawa State into trusting him and his administration.
Regrettably, like many other broken promises and empty rhetorics which the administration is always known for, the people of Nasarawa State, have remained in darkness on how their resources have been managed by the administration.
Instead of accountability as promised them, what they people always get is long grammer without substance and bogus claims of over exaggerated and over hyped achievements which were not supported with facts and figures. Because of Sule’s systematic and entrenched culture of opaqueness, governance in my beloved state has inadvertently transmogrified to a secret cult.
The highest the administration has done in its almost eight years in office in the name of accountability was the announcement of improvement on the State IGR and recently, the confirmation by the governor about increases in the state monthly allocations from between N4.5bn to N14 to N16bn monthly.
This is not accountability but a confirmation of what most enlightened people are already aware which is in public domain thanks to relevant federal Government Agencies who published monthly disbursements to states through various platforms.
What the people of Nasarawa State are demanding from this government is simple and straight forward. The people want to know how much is the sum total of resources received by this administration as federal allocations in its nearly eight years in office that is from May 29th 2019- September 2026? How much is the total IGR collected by this government since its inception and how were these resources expended?
They are not asking for vaque explanations but a vivid explanation on how every kobo was spent. It is a huge disservice for the government to mention the various infrastructure it has built without giving us account of the resources expended in the process.
Nasarawa citizens want to know for instance, how many kilometers of rural roads the administration has constructed in its over seven years in office? How many kilometers of urban roads it has so far constructed since 2019? The locations and cost of each of these roads? How many were completed? The status of uncompleted ones among other relevant information.
In the same vein, the people want the government to come clean in respect of all other projects it executed since it came on board to date in all sectors.
I have thrown this challenged before to this administration in my recent rejoinder titled Re- Nasarawa State Government response to Muazu Abari following government rejoinder to one of my article titled Nasarawa: When you’ve a noise maker as governor authored by Mr. Peter Ahemba, Senior Special Assistant to Governor Sule on public affairs.
I’m still challenging this administration to tell the people of Nasarawa State the exact amount of money collected by Sule’s administration as federal allocations since he came on board to date that is from May 29th 2019 to September 2026.
I also want the administration to tell the people how much was also collected as IGR in almost eight years of this Government? How were these monies expanded? The cost of each project executed across different sectors, their locations and current status among other information.
Without doubt, Governor Sule must have executed projects that have improved the living conditions of the people. But that won’t shelve him from being accountable to the people of the state. After all, there is no government anywhere in the world no matter how terrible it may be that won’t have some achievements to its credit.
The issue of accountability in governance is beyond whether a government has executed projects or not but it is about how every Kobo of public funds collected on behalf of the people was managed.
A governor who talk beyond redemption, obsessed with cameras and makes bogus claims of over exaggerated achievements should not lost his voice on issue of accountability and management of public funds.
While waiting for answers on these fundamental concerns, it would interest the people of Nasarawa State, to know that since the creation of the state in 1996, no administration has received stupendous resources like Sule’s administration.
In fact, the resources collected by this government is more than all the resources collected by various administrations from 1999 to 2019 put together believed to be over one trillion naira so far and still counting in both Federal allocations and IGR but unfortunately with less to show for it interms of development.
It is also fair to put it on public domain that throughout Almakura’s eight years as governor that is from May 29th 2011, to May 29th 2019, the cumulative resources received as federal allocations in all these is between N300bn to N350bn while, the IGR was N500m going by available financial records and data.
During Taal’s eight year tenure that is from 2011 to 2019, the monthly allocations to Nasarawa State from the federation account is always between N2.5 bn to N3bn. But despite these financial constraints, he was able to raise the bar of governance and turned the state into a model of good governance and infrastructural development in Nigeria with his footprints scattered across all sectors in the state.
On the other hand, Sule has received huge resources than any other administration in the state but with less to show interms of concrete achievements especially if compared with the quantum of resources available to the administration which is being handled in secrecy away from the people against democratic principles of accountability.
Although there is no data showing the exact cumulative sum tracking every individual months disbursements to Nasarawa State from May 29th to 2019 to September 2026, when Sule took over by the National Bureau for statistics ( NBS), however, the verified yearly financial data shows that Nasarawa State under Gov. Sule has collected over N650bn in gross federal allocations disbursements.
The breakdown of the state federal allocations highlights massive shift in revenue following federal economic reforms which enabled the administration to have access to more resources for development projects.
Available financial records and data from relevant government agencies revealed that when Sule came on board in 2019, the gross FAAC allocations averaged roughly N47.7 bn annually. Specifically, the state received the following disbursements N44.86bn in 2019, N67.7bn in 2022 and in 2023 full year the allocation grow significantly to N127.29bn nearly doubling the previous years.
Likewise in 2024, the annual allocations surged further to N194.85bn surpassing the combined total of 2020, 2021, and 2022. Also in 2025, Nasarawa under Sule received an estimated N113.22 bn in the first eight months that is from January to August 2025, and in 2026 that is the first half of the year the state pulled in N72.78bn.
In order words, data shows that from June 2019 to December 2022 that is 43 months of Sule’s administration Nasarawa State government has collected N179.5bn from the federation account. It should also be noted that, during the early years of the administration, the monthly allocations to states was relatively low though higher than that of Almakura’s government which is between N2.5bn to N3bn highest to N3.8bn and N4.5bn under Sule.
But in 2023 full year Sule has collected a whooping sum of N111.54 bn in that year alone as revenue began to surge tremendously in the second half of the year following the removal of fuel subsidy and foreign exchange unification reforms.
Likewise in 2024 full year, Nasarawa State Government under Sule’s administration has received an estimated N120bn to N130bn as federal allocations with first quarter of 2024 alone bringing N47.02 bn.
As statutory disbursements to states grew in 2025 full year, the present administration has collected over N145bn in total revenue from the federal government. Additionally, from January to December 2026, Nasarawa State Government under Sule has collected N120 bn to N135bn as allocations.
Official data shows that between January to May 2026, the state hits a gross allocations of N79.13bn by mid 2026 and the state monthly allocations expanded dramatically averaging between N14bn to N16bn per month as confessed by the governor himself.
On the issue of IGR, record shows that, the state revenue profile has experienced massive growth over this period transforming from about N500 million in 2019, to N2.5bn and N3.5bn by 2025/2026 due to extensive tax automation, central billing, solid minerals royalties among others.
In the same vein, between May 2019 to September 2026, Nasarawa State under Sule has collected approximately N155bn to N165bn in cumulative IGR Revenue .
The annual breakdown of IGR collected stood at the following. From May to December N4.5bn, the full physical year recorded roughly N7.7 bn, in 2020- 2022, N50bn was collectively collected as IGR (averaging roughly N16bn to N19.3bn annually.)
Likewise, in 2023 N20.1bn was collected as IGR, N25.52bn in 2024, N52bn in 2025 the highest recorded performance in the history of the state and in 2026 up to September is N25 bn to N35bn.
The question on the lips of most people in Nasarawa State today is where are their billions of naira? What projects were executed with them? They also want to have a roll call of all projects executed by this government across various sectors and the cost implications among many other unanswered questions
All what they people are asking for is for the administration to come out clean on the issue of accountability, public finances and management of resources at their disposal by rendering account to the citizens which is not too much to ask from a government that achieved less with much.