ABT NEWS EXCLUSIVE | By ABT News Investigative Desk
We want to ask Nigerians one simple question, and we want us to actually answer it together: WHERE DOES OUR MONEY GO?
Think about the money you collectively earn as a country—every kobo of oil revenue, every customs duty, every company tax, every regulatory fee, and every court fine. This is the lifeblood that is supposed to fund our roads, schools, hospitals, and police.
Yet, Nigerians are suffering, and a damning new policy paper by Dr. Olisa Agbakoba (SAN) reveals exactly why.
The Federation Account: A Constitutional Broken Promise
Most Nigerians do not know this, but Nigeria has a special bank account called the Federation Account. Created by Section 162 of the 1999 Constitution, the law dictates that every single kobo of revenue collected by the federal government on behalf of Nigeria must flow into this one account. From there, it is meant to be shared among the federal government, the 36 states, and the 774 local governments based on a strict sharing formula.
That is the law. But the reality is a staggering tale of financial hemorrhage.
According to the World Bank’s Nigeria Development Update, in 2025 alone, a mind-numbing ₦14.94 TRILLION of federation revenue was “deducted” before it ever reached the Federation Account. That is 39%—nearly two-fifths—of what Nigeria earned, vanishing before any state or Local Government Area saw a single kobo.
The NNPCL Mystery
The numbers get even more alarming when looking at Nigeria’s biggest revenue generator: the NNPCL.
- In 2024, NNPCL was supposed to remit ₦1.1 trillion to the Federation Account.
- It only remitted ₦600 billion.
- The burning question: Where is the missing ₦500 billion?
Worse still, there is currently an active FAAC investigation into allegations that NNPCL under-remitted a colossal $42.37 BILLION between 2011 and 2017. At today’s exchange rate, that is roughly ₦12.91 trillion—more than the entire 2024 federal budget, bleeding from just one company over six years. And these are only the leakages we know about.
Drowning in Debt While Bleeding Revenue
While trillions vanish, the nation is suffocating under mountains of debt.
As of the end of 2025, Nigeria’s total public debt stood at a terrifying ₦159.27 TRILLION, according to the Debt Management Office in February 2026.
The math is brutal:
- In 2023, debt servicing consumed 78% of federal revenue.
- In 2024, it consumed 69%.
- Out of every ₦1 the federal government earned last year, almost 70 kobo went straight to paying back loans.
- This leaves a mere 30 kobo to fund hospitals, schools, roads, police, military, civil service salaries, infrastructure, and security for 220 million Nigerians.
The tragic irony? We are borrowing at high interest to replace money we already earned but failed to collect properly. We are borrowing to fund services our own revenues should have covered if they had actually reached the Federation Account.
This is the real reason your life is harder today. This is why fuel is expensive. This is why school fees have doubled, why your salary buys less every month, why hospitals lack drugs, and why universities are perpetually on strike. This is not just abstract corruption; this is a constitutional system that has been fatally broken for 25 years.
The Loophole: 25 Years of Silence
How did this happen? When Section 162 created the Federation Account in 1999, the Constitution remained dangerously silent on crucial safeguards. It did not state:
- Who is supposed to keep the account safely?
- How quickly money must be remitted after collection.
- Who audits the account?
- What happens if you steal from it?
- Whether the public is allowed to see the records.
This 25-year silence has birthed every administrative trick in the book. Agencies brazenly deduct “management fees” before remitting. NNPCL retains “costs” before paying in. Unauthorised sub-accounts are opened, and cash is collected but never remitted.
A 2023 House of Representatives investigation uncovered that while ₦8.7 trillion passed through the Treasury Single Account (TSA), agencies had simultaneously proliferated unauthorised parallel accounts.
The sheer lack of oversight reached a comedic, yet tragic, climax in 2024 when the Minister of Finance herself admitted that until August of that year, the federal government could not fully see its own balance sheet. The people running the country literally could not see all the money the country had.
The Illusion of the TSA
Many will point to the Treasury Single Account (TSA), introduced in 2015 by then-Finance Minister Dr. Okonjo-Iweala, as the solution. While a well-intentioned reform that initially reduced government bank accounts, it is fundamentally flawed.
The TSA is not in the Constitution; it is merely an executive memo that any President can undo tomorrow. More importantly, it only covers Federal Government cash management—it does not solve the root constitutional crisis of state and LGA revenues being illegally deducted before reaching the Federation Account. The TSA treated the symptoms, not the disease. That is exactly why ₦14.94 trillion still vanished in 2025, a whole decade after the TSA was rolled out.
Time for Reform
Released this April 2026, Dr. Olisa Agbakoba’s policy paper, “Where Is Our Money? Nigeria’s Federation Account Crisis and the Case for Reform,” lays bare a straightforward fix. The proposed solutions are so painfully obvious that it is an insult to the Nigerian people that they haven’t been implemented already.
It is time to demand accountability.
Drop your thoughts below. Tag your senator. Tag your governor. Share this with at least one person who does not know the truth.
#WhereIsOurMoney #Section162
By
