AS Nigerians continue to battle soaring cost of living, Senate President Godswill Akpabio and the National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Prof. Nentawe Yilwatda, have blamed state governors for not translating the country’s surging revenue allocations into tangible improvements in the lives of citizens.
News Point Nigeria reports that the The two leaders, speaking separately at public events in Abuja on Monday, urged Nigerians to hold their governors and local government chairmen accountable for how they spend the increased statutory allocations flowing from the Federation Account which, according to Yilwatda, have risen from ₦400 billion per month two years ago to about ₦2.2 trillion today.
Both men insisted that the current hardship confronting Nigerians cannot be entirely blamed on the Federal Government, stressing that governors and local government administrators must justify the massive funds at their disposal by investing in infrastructure, jobs, and social welfare.
Speaking at the public presentation of “Vicious Red Circle,” a book on human trafficking written by Alex Oriaku, APC National Chairman Prof. Nentawe Yilwatda challenged Nigerians to begin tracking how their state governments utilize the resources allocated to them.
He said, “No governor in Nigeria collects less than three to four times what they used to collect before — none. Who remembers that two years ago, there was a sharing of about ₦400 billion per month? Today, the last sharing they did was ₦2.2 trillion.
“So, they can do more for their people. I urge Nigerians, talk to your governors, talk to your local government chairmen. Let them do more.”
Yilwatda, who recently assumed the APC chairmanship amid growing public criticism of economic policies, maintained that President Bola Tinubu’s administration was “on the right track” toward stabilizing the economy, and that state-level accountability was now the missing link.
Similarly, Senate President Godswill Akpabio, speaking at the joint graduation ceremony of the National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies (NILDS) and the University of Benin, called on State Houses of Assembly to step up oversight of how governors spend their allocations.
He noted that recent legislative reforms and stronger revenue oversight by the National Assembly had significantly increased inflows to the Consolidated Revenue Fund, leading to record allocations across all tiers of government.
“We have no other country to call our own, and so we must invest for the overall good of our nation,” Akpabio said.
“As members of the 10th Senate, we are strengthening our oversight and ensuring public institutions deliver effective service. Our efforts have contributed to rising revenues and that must now translate to better living standards and job creation at the state level.”
At the same NILDS graduation ceremony, Speaker of the House of Representatives Tajudeen Abbas reaffirmed that the National Assembly would continue to reform the budget process to ensure fiscal discipline and transparency.
“The reforms of President Bola Tinubu’s administration are yielding results,” Abbas said. “Inflation has declined below 20 percent, and the naira is regaining strength against major currencies. Though it’s not yet uhuru, the economy is on a better growth path than it would have been under business-as-usual.”
Director-General of NILDS, Prof. Abubakar Sulaiman, also used the platform to appeal for increased funding of tertiary education in the 2026 budget, warning that underinvestment could further cripple human capital development.
“The funding of higher institutions has a direct relationship with human capacity development. Low funding leads to poor-quality graduates,” he cautioned, urging federal and state governments to find a lasting solution to the recurring university strikes.
Meanwhile, at the launch of “Vicious Red Circle,” discussions shifted to the growing menace of human trafficking, which participants described as one of the most dangerous transnational crimes confronting Nigeria.
Director-General of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), Mohammed Mohammed, said trafficking had “eroded the nation’s social fabric” and robbed victims of their dignity and future, pledging the NIA’s continued support to the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP).
Reviewer of the 198-page book, Dr. Ike Neliaku, President of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations, linked trafficking to corruption and systemic silence, urging Nigerians to “reject the culture of complicity.”
Author Alex Oriaku said the book sought to “expose the cycle of exploitation and silence fueling human trafficking, a circle that preys on the desperate, the vulnerable, and the unseen.”