TUESDAY 2ND, SEPTEMBER 2025
An Open Correspondence to All Governors of the Federal Republic of Nigeria
On the Imperative of Cascading Increased FAAC Allocations into Tangible Grassroots Development
By O.A. Ayinde, PhD
Your Excellencies,
The recent surge in Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) disbursements presents not merely a fiscal increment but a constitutional, fiduciary, and economic obligation upon your esteemed offices. These transfers are not discretionary windfalls; they are statutory entitlements derived from the constitutional revenue allocation formula enshrined under Section 162 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended). To treat them as personal or partisan largesse would constitute a misapprehension of both law and justice.
The principle of vertical and horizontal fiscal equity compels each state to deploy these resources in a manner that satisfies distributive justice, intergenerational equity, and allocative efficiency. A Governor is not merely a custodian of recurrent expenditure but a trustee of public finance. Every naira received carries with it the doctrine of public trust and fiduciary accountability, grounded in Section 14(2)(b) of the Constitution: “the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government.”
From an economic standpoint, increased FAAC disbursements demand counter-cyclical fiscal interventions. In an era of inflationary pressures, unemployment, and infrastructural deficits, these allocations must not be sterilized in recurrent emoluments or patronage networks. Instead, they must be converted into productive capital expenditure that stimulates aggregate demand, enhances factor productivity, and reduces transaction costs across your states. Every pothole unfilled is a tax on commerce; every broken bridge is a barrier to market access; every impassable feeder road is an obstruction to agricultural value chains.
Your Excellencies, let us also dispense with the perennial jurisdictional debate on whether a road is “federal” or “state.” From the perspective of economic jurisprudence, such classification is immaterial to the principle of public utility maximization. Whether the road falls under the Federal Highways Act or a state law of works, the economic effect of its dilapidation is borne directly by citizens, traders, and industries. Repairing such roads is not an act of benevolence but a fulfillment of the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur—the fact speaks for itself: infrastructure is the lifeblood of commerce.
Consider the North-East, where post-conflict reconstruction requires more than tokenism. Allocations must be deployed through Marshall Plan–style reconstruction frameworks, restoring not only physical capital but also social capital. The fiscal multiplier here is enormous: rehabilitated schools, retooled hospitals, and revitalized roads will crowd-in private investment and restore investor confidence.
In the North-West, insecurity has disrupted factor mobility and labor productivity. Here, the task is to convert FAAC revenues into public goods provision that mitigates negative externalities caused by banditry and rural poverty. Rebuilding roads and expanding irrigation systems is a form of public capital investment that crowds-out the shadow economy while crowding-in formal sector activity.
The North-Central, Nigeria’s agricultural heartland, demands an emphasis on logistics infrastructure and value chain integration. Legal frameworks on public finance management (PFM) already require states to ensure budgetary discipline, transparency, and fiscal responsibility. Therefore, to neglect agricultural roads or dams is not merely inefficiency—it is a violation of fiscal responsibility principles codified in law.
The South-West, cradle of commerce and education, requires interventions anchored in urban economic theory and infrastructural elasticity of output. Lagos cannot sustain its hub status if transport externalities erode competitiveness. Oyo, Ogun, Ekiti, Ondo, and Osun cannot unleash their agricultural and industrial wealth without proper road networks. This region, the birthplace of enlightenment politics, must not allow itself to descend into infrastructural darkness as they must leverage allocations into industrial corridors, applying the doctrine of comparative advantage to their agricultural and manufacturing bases.
In the South-East, where entrepreneurial dynamism remains unmatched, road neglect amounts to an economic sabotage of Nigeria’s most industrious region. Allocations here must be deployed through infrastructure-led growth models, where rehabilitated roads enhance economies of scale for Aba’s markets, Nnewi’s factories, and Ebonyi’s farms. Anything less constitutes allocative injustice.
The South-South, paradox of oil wealth and infrastructural decay, must reconfigure allocations into instruments of resource justice and ecological remediation. Here, the law of restitution and equity demands that oil-producing communities, having borne the external costs of extraction, must feel the first fruits of fiscal disbursements. Roads, bridges, and water projects are not charity; they are constitutional entitlements and instruments of restorative justice.
Yet, Your Excellencies, let it be clearly stated: President Bola Ahmed Tinubu cannot single-handedly deliver Renewed Hope. The macroeconomic framework he sets at the federal level requires subnational fiscal transmission mechanisms to translate policy into palpable outcomes. Renewed Hope must cascade downwards—from State Houses to Local Governments, from capitals to wards, from budgets to bread. Unless you, the Governors, institutionalize fiscal decentralization and expenditure tracking, the philosophy of Renewed Hope risks remaining aspirational rhetoric.
You are not merely administrators; you are economic actors in a federated polity. By the doctrine of cooperative federalism, your budgets must align with national aspirations, while remaining sensitive to local peculiarities. Failure to cascade these allocations to local governments constitutes a breach of the principle of subsidiarity, which demands that governance be executed at the lowest effective level closest to the people.
In conclusion, history will not judge you by the quantum of allocations received, but by the quality of fiscal outcomes achieved. Will these revenues be dissipated in recurrent excesses, or will they be transmuted into durable capital assets that uplift the grassroots? Will you entrench fiscal probity and intergenerational equity, or perpetuate cycles of rent-seeking and elite capture? The answer lies in the choices you make today.
Govern well, deploy wisely, act justly—and you will inscribe your names not only in the ledgers of finance but in the living archives of Nigerian destiny.
With profound respect and uncompromising conviction
O.A. Ayinde, PhD
Public Policy Analyst / Masses’ Advocate
Ikeja, Lagos, Nigeria
Email : [email protected]
