I want to ask Nigerians a simple question, and I want us to truly answer it together WHERE DOES OUR MONEY GO?
Every kobo of oil revenue, every customs duty, every company tax, every regulatory fee, every court fine, all the money you collectively earn as a country. The money that is meant to pay for our roads, schools, hospitals and police.
Most Nigerians don’t know this, so I will start with something that may shock you: Nigeria has a special bank account. It is called the FEDERATION ACCOUNT. It was created by Section 162 of the 1999 Constitution. All the kobo of revenue the federal government collects on Nigeria’s behalf is supposed to go into that one account. It is then shared to the federal government, the 36 states and the 774 local governments based on a distribution formula.
That’s the law. That is what the Constitution actually means.
The World Bank’s Nigeria Development Update revealed that in 2025 alone ₦14.94 TRILLION of federation revenue was “deducted” before it ever reached the Federation Account. That’s 39% — almost two-fifths — of Nigeria’s earnings, spent before any state or LGA saw a single kobo.
NNPCL – Nigeria’s largest revenue earner – was expected to remit N1.1 trillion into the Federation Account in 2024. It cancelled ₦600 billion. Where is the 500bn naira?
There is also an ongoing FAAC investigation on allegations of an under-remittance of 42.37 BILLION dollars by NNPCL between 2011 and 2017. That is about ₦12.91 trillion at current exchange rate. That’s more than our entire federal budget for 2024, for context. One company. For over 6 years. And remember, these are the leakages we are aware of.
Meanwhile we are drowning in debt
Nigeria’s total public debt stood at ₦159.27 TRILLION at the end of 2025 (Debt Management Office, February 2026). In 2023, debt service accounted for 78% of federal revenue. In 2024 it used up 69%. The IMF and World Bank recommend that countries keep debt service at 30-40% of revenue. We are almost double that benchmark. For every ₦1 the federal government earned last year, almost 70 kobo went on servicing loans. That leaves 30 kobo for everything else, hospitals, schools, roads, police, military, civil service salaries, infrastructure, security for 220 million Nigerians.
And for what are we borrowing? We are borrowing to fund services that should be funded by OUR OWN revenues, if they ever make it to the Federation Account. Let that be. We borrow money at interest to make up for money we already earned but never properly collected.
That’s why fuel costs so much. That’s why they doubled the school fees.” That’s why your pay buys less every month. Hospitals don’t have drugs for that reason. This is why universities are always striking . Not abstract corruption. This is the story of the constitution that has been broken for 25 years.
The Federation Account was established in 1999 under Section 162 of the Constitution. But the Constitution didn’t say:
Who is to guard the account?* The amount of time to remit money after collection
* Who audits the account ?
What if you rob it?
* If the records are open to public inspection
These questions have been dumb for twenty-five years, and in their dumbness have prospered all sorts of administrative tricks. They take “management fees” before remitting. The NNPCL retains “costs” before payment in. Some agencies open sub-accounts without approval. Some take the money and never send it. The 2023 House of Representatives investigation found N8.7 trillion passed through the Treasury Single Account but agencies had proliferated unauthorised parallel accounts the whole time.
In 2024 the Minister of Finance HERSELF admitted that the federal government would not see the full extent of its balance sheet until August of that year. Re-read that line. In 2024 the people who ran the country could not see all the money the country had.
I know someone’s gonna ask this in the replies, so I’ll get it out of the way now.
The Treasury Single Account was introduced by Dr. Okonjo-Iweala as the Minister of Finance in 2015. It was a well-meaning reform – to streamline government accounts and reduce leakage. And for a couple of years it helped to cut down the number of MDA bank accounts.
But here’s the rub: TSA is NOT in the Constitution. It was an executive memo. A circular . Any president can undo it tomorrow. And worse, it touches on Federal Government cash management – it does NOT solve the constitutional problem of revenues belonging to States and LGAs being deducted before reaching the Federation Account. TSA was focused on symptoms. It didn’t cure the disease. So ₦14.94 trillion still disappeared in 2025 – a decade after the TSA was introduced.
This month, Dr Olisa Agbakoba (SAN), released a policy paper, titled: “Where Is Our Money? Nigeria’s Federation Account Crisis and the Case for Reform”. I’ve read it. You should also read it.
Honestly, the fix they propose is so simple it’s almost insulting we haven’t done it already.
Let us know your thoughts in the comment down below. Tag your senator. Tag your governor. Share this with one person who doesn’t know.
#whereismymoney #section162
Dr Olisa Agbakoba Legal Policy Paper, April 2026 – “Where Is Our Money? Nigeria’s Federation Account Crisis & The Case For Reform.
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