The lead story caption of today’s Observer Times is instructive, not because it says anything new, but because it finally says aloud what Nigerians already know. Governor Sheriff Oborevwori of Delta State has reminded the country that states are now receiving increased funding from the Federal Government. He did not whisper it. He did not hide it. He said it plainly: there is money. More money is coming. And governors should use it so that the people will be happy.
This blunt admission destroys the last convenient lie in subnational governance: the lie of scarcity.
If there is money, then the crisis confronting Kogi State is no longer technical. It is moral.
Kogi State Government has just proposed a ₦820 billion budget for 2026. This is not survival funding. This is not emergency relief. This is war-chest-level public finance. Yet across the state, citizens are confronted with a grim paradox: rising revenues alongside declining public value. Roads remain unsafe. Hospitals remain under-equipped. Schools remain hollow shells. Workers and pensioners remain trapped in uncertainty. Development exists mainly in speeches, banners, and staged photographs.
This is token governance in its purest form: gestures without substance, announcements without impact, visibility without value.
But tokenism is only the surface problem. Beneath it lies something more corrosive.
Kogi is not merely underperforming; it is being governed in collusion. Public funds are being drained through an entrenched godfather system that treats the state as political property rather than public trust. Governance is conducted by proxy. Power does not answer to citizens; it answers to patrons. Accountability flows upward to godfathers, not downward to the people.
This is not speculation. It is observable reality.
At a time when hospitals lack equipment and roads remain death traps, Kogi citizens are confronted with the sudden appearance of fleets of branded vehicles, centrally coordinated, politically targeted, and deployed ahead of a senatorial contest that has not even formally begun. Campaign infrastructure is moving efficiently while public services crawl. Political ambition is generously funded while governance pleads constraint.
When government finds money easily for campaign vehicles but struggles endlessly to fund hospitals, schools, and pensions, the problem is not capacity. It is character.
The question writes itself: who paid for these vehicles, under what authority, and with what money?
When a state claims prudence but delivers political luxury; when it pleads limited resources but funds campaign optics; when it struggles to serve citizens but excels at promoting power, suspicion is no longer cynicism. It is civic responsibility.
Even more disturbing is the audacity with which a second-term narrative is being canvassed without a first-term accounting. In any serious democracy, continuity is earned by performance. In Kogi, it is being marketed as entitlement. Citizens are being asked to endorse renewal without review, loyalty without results, and permanence without proof.
This is an insult to democratic intelligence.
Let it be stated clearly: a ₦820 billion budget does not belong to a governor, a party, or a godfather. It belongs to the people of Kogi State, past, present, and future. Every naira must be justified. Every contract must be traceable. Every project must be verifiable. Every politically branded asset must be explained.
For Kogi Equity Alliance, demanding accountability is not opposition politics. It is citizenship. We are not calling for disorder. We are calling for answers.
KEA therefore demands an independent forensic audit of Kogi State finances from 2023 to date, including procurement records, contract awards, vehicle acquisitions, and all politically branded assets. Public money cannot be converted into campaign capital. Governance must not be reduced to logistics for personal ambition.
We insist that the pilferers in Lugard House be held to strict account. We demand transparency in budget execution, disclosure of funding sources for campaign-style assets, an end to governance by proxy, and a replacement of propaganda with measurable outcomes.
These demands are not radical. What is radical is resisting them.
History shows that citizens eventually withdraw consent from governments that mistake silence for approval. Kogi’s silence is ending. What comes next will be decided by those who chose looting over leadership.
Governor Oborevwori has said there is money. The money is coming. The only unresolved question in Kogi is who it is being used for.
₦820 billion is too much money for excuses.
Too much money for godfather politics.
Too much money for token governance.
Kogi people must no longer clap. They must ask.
They must no longer wait. They must demand.
And together, they must hold those in Lugard House to strict account.
— M.A. Yusuf
Kogi Equity Alliance (KEA)
