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 supposed 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 the 1999 Constitution in Section 162. All the kobo of revenue the federal government collects on behalf of Nigeria is supposed to flow into that one account. Then it is shared among the federal government, the 36 states, and the 774 local governments based on a sharing formula.
That’s the law. That is what the Constitution really says.
According to the World Bank’s Nigeria Development Update, ₦14.94 TRILLION of federation revenue was “deducted” before it even got to the Federation Account in 2025 alone. That’s 39% — almost two-fifths — of what Nigeria earned, spent before any state or LGA saw a single kobo.
NNPCL, Nigeria’s biggest revenue generator, was expected to pay N1.1 trillion into the Federation Account in 2024. It cancelled ₦600 billion. Where is the ₦500bn?
There is an ongoing FAAC investigation concerning allegations that NNPCL under-remitted $42.37 BILLION from 2011 to 2017. At today’s exchange rate, that is around ₦12.91 trillion. For perspective, that’s more than our whole federal budget for 2024. One company. For over 6 years. And remember, these are the leakages we know.
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, 78 percent of the federal government’s revenue was spent on debt service. 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 made last year, nearly 70 kobo went to repaying loans. That leaves 30 kobo for everything else: hospitals, schools, roads, police, military, civil service salaries, infrastructure, and security—for 220 million Nigerians.
And for what are we borrowing? In large part, we are borrowing to fund services that our OWN revenues — if they actually reached the Federation Account — should fund. Let that be. We are borrowing money at interest to replace money that we have already earned but never collected properly.
That’s the reason fuel is so expensive. This is the reason why the school fees doubled. That’s why your salary buys less every month. This is why there are no drugs in hospitals. 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 keep the account safe?* The period within which money must be remitted after collection
* Who audits the account ?
* What if you steal from it?
* Whether the records are open to public inspection
The silence on these questions for twenty-five years has allowed all kinds of administrative tricks to flourish. They deduct “management fees” prior to remittance. The NNPCL maintains “costs” before paying in. Some agencies open sub-accounts without approval. Some collect the cash and never send it out. 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 comments, so I’ll just get it out of the way now.
The Treasury Single Account, introduced by Dr. Okonjo-Iweala as Finance Minister in 2015. It was a reform with good intentions — to consolidate government accounts and reduce leakage. And for a few years, it helped to cut down the number of MDA bank accounts.
But here’s the problem: the 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. The TSA 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.
The proposed fix is honestly so simple, it’s almost insulting that we haven’t already done it.
Let us know your thoughts in the comment down below. Tag your senator. Tag your governor. Tell 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.
