A fierce row has broken out between the Presidency and Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde. Makinde claims the Federal Government is holding back about N250 billion owed to each state from Nigeria LNG (NLNG) dividends, and will not release it until after the 2027 elections.
The Presidency has called the claim false and “impossible,” and has told Nigerians to disregard it.
What Makinde said
Makinde, now the Allied People’s Movement (APM) presidential candidate for 2027, made the allegation on Friday at the 2027 Budget Stakeholders’ Consultative Engagement in Ibadan.
He said that after NLNG paid dividends into the Federation Account, the Federal Government spent the money instead of sharing it with the states. “They fooled us,” he told the audience.
The governor said the amounts due to states had already been reconciled. “Each state was supposed to get N250 billion,” he said, adding that some states were in fact owed more than that. He accused the government of delaying the payments for political reasons, asking: “Is the election more important than the people of Nigeria?”
The Presidency: “The arithmetic doesn’t work”
On Sunday, Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Information and Strategy, issued a statement rejecting the claim.
He set out the numbers:
- N250 billion for each of the 36 states comes to N9 trillion.
- Under the FAAC sharing formula, states receive 26.72% of distributable Federation Account revenue.
- For the states’ share to reach N9 trillion, NLNG would have had to pay more than N33.68 trillion (about $25 billion) into the Federation Account in a single dividend payout.
“NLNG has never paid $25 billion in dividends to the Federation Account in a single payout,” Onanuga said.
He added that NLNG has paid about $21.5 billion in dividends to the Federation over its entire 25-year history, and less than $3 billion of that since President Tinubu took office in 2023. In other words, the sum Makinde says is being withheld is larger than everything NLNG has ever paid the Federation.
The Presidency also urged the governor to be “more measured in his public conduct and utterances.”
What is still unclear
The Presidency’s statement did not give a payment-by-payment account of the NLNG dividends Makinde referred to, or a breakdown of what each state is owed. That leaves room for both sides to keep arguing.
NLNG dividends have been controversial before. Over the years, civil society groups and lawmakers have repeatedly asked what happened to dividend payments, and whether the states and local governments always received their legal share.
Why it matters
The clash shows how heated politics has become ahead of the 2027 general elections. Makinde, a two-term governor who left the PDP, is one of several opposition presidential hopefuls challenging President Tinubu’s record on the economy.
For ordinary Nigerians, the question is simple: is money that belongs to the states being withheld? Until there is an independent, transparent accounting of NLNG dividends paid into the Federation Account, the row is likely to run on.
Source: Premium Times, The Punch.