Economy
BudgIT Raises Alarm Over Poor Transparency in Nigeria’s Local Government Budgets
By Adedapo Adesanya
Governance transparency platform, BudgIT, has expressed worry that only 10 states provided publicly accessible budget information for their Local Government Areas (LGAs).
The report, titled The Missing Tier: Mapping Local Government Budget Transparency in Nigeria, found that while six states offer partial or outdated disclosures, as many as 18 states do not publish any LGA budget data at all.
Despite the existence of these budgets at council secretariats nationwide, BudgIT noted that access remains largely restricted, particularly online.
“For most of Nigeria’s 774 local governments, those budgets are not publicly accessible online,” the report stated.
Among the states assessed, Ekiti emerged as the top performer, with a comprehensive system that includes detailed, up-to-date budget documentation for its councils.
Other states identified as making LGA budget information available include Ebonyi, Osun, Kebbi, Kogi, Enugu, Kaduna and Yobe.
However, the report cautioned that even among these states, data quality remains inconsistent, with several budgets either incomplete, outdated, or poorly structured.
BudgIT highlighted notable examples of improved accountability practices.
Ekiti State, for instance, publishes individual 2026 budgets for all its LGAs and LCDAs, accompanied by signed documents, consultation records, and standardised financial templates.
Cross River State also stood out for releasing individual council budgets, audited accounts, and quarterly performance reports.
Similarly, Borno State was commended for maintaining a consolidated 2025 budget alongside supporting financial documents, suggesting a structured and functional reporting system.
The report identified six states with limited transparency, providing only fragmented or outdated information.
Kano State, for example, publishes quarterly performance reports but lacks full-year approved budgets.
In Imo State, no LGA budgets were found, although a financial statement from the Accountant-General was available.
Ondo State reportedly released documents for only a portion of its LGAs, while Anambra published an appropriation law without detailed breakdowns. Ogun State, meanwhile, only provided data for 2024.
BudgIT further disclosed that a large number of states fail entirely to make LGA budgets public.
These include Abia, Adamawa, Akwa Ibom, Bauchi, Bayelsa, Benue, Delta, Edo, Gombe, Jigawa, Katsina, Lagos, Nasarawa, Niger, Oyo, Plateau, Rivers, Sokoto, Taraba, and Zamfara.
According to the organisation, the issue is not the absence of budget documents but the lack of public access to them.
“Yet for most of Nigeria’s 774 local governments, those budgets are not publicly accessible online,” the civic tech firm said.
BudgIT stressed that improving transparency at the local government level does not require complex reforms but rather a deliberate policy decision.
“Since state governments already publish their own budgets online, extending the same standard to local councils is neither complex nor costly; it is a matter of institutional choice,” the organisation said.
It added, “This choice is a critical one; Nigeria’s post-1999 experience with democracy has not had Local Governments with significant autonomy. Be that as it may, LGAs still have the opportunity to make public what they budget, what they spend and what they earn.”
Highlighting the benefits of openness, the report noted that transparency enables citizens to track public spending and hold officials accountable.
“Where they are withheld, accountability stops at the state level, leaving the tier closest to citizens financially opaque,” BudgIT said.
By Aduragbemi Omiyale
About N878.7 billion was remitted to federal and state authorities in taxes, levies and duties by MTN Nigeria Communications Plc in the 2025 financial year.
According to details of the company’s 2025 Sustainability Report, this amount was 15 per higher than the previous year, helping the country achieve its target of expanding non-oil revenue and improving tax collection under its fiscal reform agenda, corporate tax contributions from major private-sector operators.
In 2023, MTN Nigeria paid N543.9 billion in taxes and levies, and a year later, it moved higher by about 62 per cent to N764 billion.
The N878.7 billion remitted to the government in 2025 covered corporation tax, value-added tax, spectrum fees, import duties, NCC levies and contributions under the Rural and Urban Terrestrial Infrastructure (RUTI) tax credit scheme, an initiative with deep roots in MTN Nigeria’s public-private partnership playbook.
The company has long embraced such mechanisms: it participated in the Road Infrastructure Tax Credit Scheme, under which it committed N202.8 billion towards reconstructing the 110-kilometre Enugu-Onitsha Expressway.
In 2025, the RUTI scheme reached 50% completion after securing approval for an additional N23 billion tax credit aimed at expanding fibre and telecoms infrastructure in underserved communities, a model the company argues supports infrastructure development without requiring direct public expenditure.
The report also highlighted the firm’s growing domestic economic footprint, with 62 per cent of procurement spending directed to Nigerian suppliers in 2025. This was up from 59.6 per cent a year earlier.
MTN Nigeria said the policy aligns with the federal government’s local-content objectives and supports sectors including civil construction, logistics, software services and power infrastructure.
The organisation’s operational footprint expanded to 2,087 active base stations nationwide, while active mobile subscribers stood at 85.4 million by the third quarter of 2025. Active data users rose to 51.1 million, supported by smartphone penetration of 65.1 per cent.
During the year, MTN Nigeria renewed its 800MHz spectrum licence for another 10 years, to December 2034, and secured regulatory approval to lease additional spectrum from T2 Mobile, formerly 9Mobile, across 17 states and the Federal Capital Territory.
By Adedapo Adesanya
The Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited is considering a new partnership model that could give Chinese investors a majority 51 per cent stake in the Port Harcourt and Warri refineries as part of efforts to revive and commercially reposition the struggling national assets.
Details of the proposed arrangement emerged after NNPC signed a Memorandum of Understanding with China’s Sanjiang Chemical Company Limited and Xinganchen (Fuzhou) Industrial Park Operation and Management Co. Ltd. for what the national oil company described as a “potential technical equity partnership”.
The agreement, signed on April 30 in Jiaxing City, China, involved NNPC’s chief executive, Mr Bayo Ojulari, Sanjiang Chemical Chairman, Mr Guan Jianzhong, and Xinganchen Chairman, Mr Bill Bi.
According to reports, the framework is modelled after the Nigeria LNG structure, where investors hold majority equity, participate in governance and remain actively involved in operations over the long term.
Under the proposed arrangement, the Chinese firms are expected to help complete outstanding engineering and rehabilitation work at the Port Harcourt and Warri facilities while also providing operations and maintenance services aimed at delivering sustainable, world-class refinery performance.
Beyond restarting the plants, the partnership is expected to target capacity expansion, improved refining yields, cleaner fuel production and stronger profitability.
The agreement also opens the door to broader industrial ambitions, including petrochemical integration and gas-based industrial projects built around the refinery corridors.
Recall that Mr Ojulari, at the signing ceremony in April, described the deal as a major breakthrough following more than six months of negotiations.
“All parties recognise mutually beneficial opportunities for the development and long-term sustainable profitability of NNPC’s refining assets in Nigeria and the collective weight required for success,” he said.
He added that the MoU marked an important step towards identifying technical equity partners capable of restarting and expanding Nigeria’s state-owned refineries.
“The MoU is a significant step on the journey towards identifying potential technical equity partner(s) to restart and expand NNPC’s refineries and to explore opportunities in co-located petrochemical and gas-based industries,” Mr Ojulari stated.
Reports indicate that the arrangement remains non-binding and subject to technical, financial, legal and regulatory reviews before any final commercial agreements can be executed. Due diligence will cover engineering performance, operational viability, financial structure, commercial feasibility and legal compliance.
The Port Harcourt refinery rehabilitation contract had earlier been awarded to Italian engineering giant Maire Tecnimont, while separate repair efforts were also launched at the Warri refinery.
By Aduragbemi Omiyale
The total issued and fully paid-up shares of Eterna Plc are almost 2.2 billion after the listing of additional shares of the company on the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited this week.
Precisely on Wednesday, an additional 882,064,158 ordinary shares of the organisation were listed on Customs Street, a regulatory notice confirmed.
These extra stocks were from the rights issue of the firm, issued to shareholders at N22.00 per unit on the basis of three new ordinary stocks for every existing four ordinary stocks held as at the close of business on Thursday, November 27, 2025.
Eterna wanted to sell a total of 978,108,485 units, but investors only picked 882,064,158, indicating a subscription rate of 90.18 per cent.
At midweek, the new equities were brought to the stock exchange for listing, increasing the total issued and fully paid-up shares of the company from 1,304,144,647 units to 2,186,208,805 units.
“Trading licence holders are hereby notified that an additional 882,064,158 ordinary shares of 50 Kobo each of Eterna Plc were on Wednesday, May 20, 2026, listed on the daily official list of NGX.
“The additional shares arose from the company’s rights issue of 978,108,485 ordinary shares of 50 Kobo each at N22.00 per share on the basis of three new ordinary shares for every existing four ordinary shares held as at the close of business on Thursday, November 27, 2025.
“With the listing of the additional 882,064,158 ordinary shares, the total issued and fully paid-up shares of Eterna Plc have now increased from 1,304,144,647 to 2,186,208,805 ordinary shares of 50 Kobo each,” the notice signed by the Head of Issuer Regulation Department at NGX RegCo Limited, Mr Godstime Iwenekhai, stated.
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