Naijaonpoint
Governor Umo Eno spent N424,957,305,454.20 of Akwa Ibom State money between January and June 2026, and the two budget performance reports his government published for those six months do not state what a single ministry, department or agency did with its share of the money.
The spending is admitted in the state’s own Budget Implementation Report for the second quarter of 2026, examined by SecretsReporters. The report puts total expenditure for the first half of the year at N424,957,305,454.20, which is 26.8 percent of the N1,584,271,856,630 budget the governor signed for 2026 under the theme The People’s Budget of Expansion and Growth. Recurrent expenditure took N149,039,768,336.63 of the half-year total. Capital expenditure took N275,917,537,117.57. The second quarter alone consumed N223,229,654,020.69.
The money was there to spend. Revenue for the half year came to N386,223,659,119.53, made up of N334,795,833,210.83 from the Federation Account and N51,427,825,908.70 in independent revenue, and the state opened the year with a balance of N234,245,265,000. Against all of that inflow and all of that spending, the performance reports publish no account of any spending unit.
The second quarter report states in its own opening pages that it is based on the approved provision for 2026 against each organizational unit for each of the core economic classifications of expenditure. The document then does the opposite of what it promises. Beyond the statewide totals, it carries only two detailed annexes, one for primary healthcare and one for basic education, and no ministry-by-ministry or project-by-project account of the N424.96 billion appears anywhere in either quarterly report.
The two annexes that exist expose the pattern. Primary healthcare spent N388,916,228.10 in six months out of a provision of N11,120,613,710, a performance of 3.5 percent. Inside that annex, the Office of the Governor carries a primary healthcare line of N108,000,000 under Sustainable Development Goals, and its performance in the first quarter was zero and its performance in the second quarter was zero. Basic education spent N2,515,201,851.78 out of N25,872,790,140, a performance of 9.7 percent, and the Ministry of Education headquarters itself spent N6,068,605.05 out of its own N15,378,433,070 provision, recorded in the report as 0.0 percent.
For every other vote in the 2026 budget, the performance reports are silent, and the silence covers the largest pleasures of the government. The completion of the Ibom International Convention Centre in Uyo carries an approved provision of N50,000,000,000, and neither quarterly report states how much of it was released in the six months. The Government House Complex perimeter road, ravine and fence carries N12,000,000,000 under the Ministry of Works, with no actual stated. The construction of Ibom International Hotel in Uyo carries N11,326,369,740, with no actual stated. Two refurbishment lines for the Ibom Hotel and Golf Resort carry N10.91 billion between them, with no actual stated. The Arise Palm Resort carries N10,000,000,000 under the Ministry of Environment, with no actual stated. A hotel apartment at Akwa Ibom House in Abuja carries N5,000,000,000, with no actual stated.
The Governor’s Office itself voted N8,000,000,000 to a single line described as Implementation of Governments Special Project and Services, 92.5 percent of the entire capital vote of the office, and the performance reports give no account of it. The office voted N1.6 billion for international travel and N1.05 billion for local travel, N255 million for medical provisions, and N5 million for the rehabilitation of the Government House Clinic. The Office of the Secretary to the State Government voted N2.4 billion for celebrations, made up of N1 billion for special events including Democracy Day, N900 million for a week-long celebration of the anniversary of the creation of the state, and N500 million for other important celebrations handled by that office. For each of these lines, the first quarter report states no actual and the second quarter report states no actual.
Quarterly budget implementation reports exist under the fiscal responsibility framework so that citizens can match money released against the provisions their legislature approved, unit by unit. A report that publishes only statewide totals, while claiming on its face to report against each organizational unit, defeats that duty and leaves every approved provision unverifiable. The reports also carry the state’s claim of compliance with the International Public Sector Accounting Standards and the revised National Chart of Accounts, a framework whose reporting runs by organizational unit, the very breakdown the documents omit.
The silence has now outlasted the third quarter as well. The third quarter of 2026 ended on September 30, and as at October 15, no third quarter implementation report has been published on the budget office website, whose list of implementation reports still ends at the second quarter. The last account Akwa Ibom citizens have of their government’s spending stops at June 30, 2026, at N424,957,305,454.20 spent, with N1,159,314,551,175.80 of the year’s provision still to go, and with no ministry, no agency and no project named against a single naira of what has already gone out.
Source: …Secretsreporters