Governor Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa spoke some blunt truths this week at the Northern Nigeria Investment and Industrialisation Summit.
He declared that state governments have more money in their coffers today than at any other time in Nigeria’s history. His reminder is simple but profound. With the unprecedented resources flowing into state treasuries, governors no longer have excuses for failure.
For the first time in decades, allocations from the federation account have quadrupled, hitting a record N2.2 trillion in August alone.
Just a few years ago, states were squabbling over N600 billion. Today, their monthly share has grown almost fourfold, courtesy of President Bola Tinubu’s fiscal reforms. The resources are available. The question is whether the will to use them responsibly exists.
Nigerian governors owe citizens more than rhetoric and token projects. They owe them the very essence of governance—quality education, functional healthcare, secure communities, and infrastructure that can sustain modern living. They owe workers timely salaries and pensioners their dues without endless protests and humiliations. Anything short of this is dereliction of duty.
Governor Sule is right. Every State now has the resources to secure its people and develop its economy. The old playbook of excuses, finger-pointing, and blame-shifting must be discarded. Governance is not about press releases and endless ground-breaking ceremonies; it is about results that touch the lives of ordinary citizens.
Governors cannot continue to treat governance as though it were a favour bestowed on citizens. They sought the votes of the people, swore oaths of office, and pledged to serve. The responsibility they bear is not negotiable—it is moral, constitutional, and urgent.
The challenge of Nigeria’s development is not a shortage of ideas. What Nigeria suffers from is the failure of leaders to translate abundant resources into measurable development. Governors must break this cycle of inertia and prove they are not mere administrators of federal allocations.
We must insist that every state produces a blueprint of its priorities, publishes its budget transparently, and reports on how the new revenues are being deployed. Citizens are not beggars waiting for occasional handouts; they are stakeholders entitled to accountability. If State governors cannot provide that, then they have no business being in office.
The excuse of insecurity must also be interrogated. As Governor Sule noted, every state now has the resources to secure its people. Security votes run into billions monthly, yet bandits, kidnappers, and armed gangs still hold most communities hostage. The days of hiding behind Abuja must end. State Governors must rise or admit their complicity in failure.
History will not be kind to this generation of governors if, at a time of historic revenue inflows, they squander the opportunity to transform their states. They have a chance to lay foundations for future generations—schools that actually teach, hospitals that heal, farms that feed, industries that employ. If they fail, the shame will be theirs alone.
Nigerians are watching. The money is there. The time is now. Governors must deliver, or be remembered as leaders who had everything and did nothing.
