State govs spent N69.71bn on travels, attract zero investments
Thirty-two state governors in Nigeria have spent a sum of N69.71bn on their travel costs, including local and foreign trips within the first six months of 2024.
This is as government officials have also chosen to embark on annual leave abroad.
President Bola Tinubu is currently spending his two-week vacation in the United Kingdom.
Findings by Sunday PUNCH showed that three state governors, Seyi Makinde of Oyo, Babagana Zulum of Borno and Dikko Radda of Katsina, spent 90 days overseas for their annual vacation.
An analysis of the states’ budget implementation reports obtained from Open Nigerian States, a website supported by BudgiT that acts as a repository for public budget data, showed that spending on travels by government officials increased to N69.71bn in the second quarter of 2024 from N34.63bn spent on the same recurrent expenditure in the first three months of the current year.
Despite the costs, only Lagos, the Federal Capital Territory, and Ekiti attracted capital importation in the first quarter of 2024, according to the National Bureau of Statistics in its Capital Importation report for Q1, 2024.
The agency is yet to publish results for the second quarter.
According to the report, Lagos State remained the top destination for capital importation with 2.78bn, accounting for 82.42 per cent of the $3.38bn total capital imported into Nigeria in the referenced period.
The report stated that Abuja, FCT, followed Lagos State with $593.58m (17.58 per cent), with Ekiti State next with US$0.01m.
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The implication is that 34 states did not attract capital importation in the period under review.
A cursory look at the travel expenses and capital importation showed that Governor Makinde, with the highest foreign trip spending of N11.57bn between January and June, didn’t attract any foreign investors into the state.
Also, Governor Zulum and Radda spent N1.96bn and N1.94bn respectively on their trips in six months without attracting any foreign investment.
The foreign travel expenses of the state governors are highlighted to include Ebonyi, N1.85bn, Ekiti, N3.75bn, Taraba (N6.39bn), Delta (N1.98bn), Cross-Rivers (N2.31bn), Bayelsa (N1.66bn), Bauchi (N1.06bn), Anambra (N316.42m), Akwa-Ibom (N640.84bn), Adamawa (N1.72bn), Abia (N280.02m), Edo (N5.49bn), Enugu (N28.46m), Imo (N1.22bn), Gombe (N1.45bn), Jigawa (N984m), Kaduna (N1.01bn), Kano (N2.89bn), and Katsina with a total spending of N1.94bn.
For Kogi state, traveling expenses increased to N911.27m, Kebbi (N2.74bn), Kwara (N1.91bn), Nasarawa (N1.83bn), Lagos (N945.62m), Niger (N725.02bn), Ondo (N1.12bn, Sokoto (N1,41bn), Plateau (N2.99bn), Yobe (N3.01bn), and Zamfara (N1.57bn).
Benue, Rivers, and Ogun states were the ones without Q2, 2024 data.
The lack of foreign investments in the states coincides with a general fall in investments in the country due to insecurity and other issues, though the current administration says it has attracted $30bn in Foreign Direct Investments into the country.
Commenting on the lack of foreign investments in the affected states, an ECOWAS Common Investment Market consultant, Professor Jonathan Aremu, the states don’t have attractive factors.
“It’s because they don’t have attractive factors. The factors that attract foreign investment are not available in those states. One thing about investment is that it is crisis shy. Investment doesn’t go to places where there are crises. Because investors want stability and predictability in their investments, particularly, having returns on their investments”, he added
