The Nigerian presidency on Sunday 18 October denied the accusation by Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde that the federal government is holding back Nigeria LNG dividends due to the states until after the 2027 elections.
In a statement signed by Bayo Onanuga, the president's adviser on information and strategy, it disputes the figure of 250 billion naira put forward for each of the 36 states of the federation.
Seyi Makinde raised these funds on Friday 16 October in Ibadan, during a consultation on the 2027 budget. According to a report by BusinessDay, the governor says Oyo had already identified economic projects to be financed with this expected revenue. He presents the delay in payment as an obstacle to their implementation.
To rebut the accusation, the presidency reasons on the basis of a single distribution. It calculates that 250 billion naira per state would amount to 9,000 billion for the states alone, not counting the federal government, the capital territory and local governments. It recalls that the states' share of the distributable revenue in the Federation Account is 26.72%.
However, the statement does not include a schedule of the dividends referred to by the governor, nor a breakdown of the amounts due to each state. It therefore does not allow the revenue he mentions to be reconciled with the single payment on which the presidential argument rests.
During the budget consultation, Seyi Makinde also said Oyo's wage bill had risen from 4.5 billion naira in 2019 to 18 billion in 2026, in a context of rising costs for infrastructure projects.