KEY POINTS

• Only 10 states in Nigeria publish accessible LGA budgets online, a BudgIT report reveals.
• As many as 18 states publish no local government budget information at all.
• Ekiti State leads on LGA budget transparency, though even top-ranked states post incomplete data.

Despite a Supreme Court ruling that granted fiscal autonomy to local governments and growing federal pressure for accountability at the grassroots level, most Nigerian states still keep their local government budgets out of public view, a new BudgIT report has found.

According to the report, titled “The Missing Tier: Mapping Local Government Budget Transparency in Nigeria,” only 10 states currently publish accessible annual budgets for their Local Government Areas online. Meanwhile, six states provide only partial data, and 18 states publish nothing at all, leaving citizens with no way to track how funds reach or leave the third tier of government.

The findings are significant because, even though local government budgets exist at council secretariats across the country, BudgIT notes that most of Nigeria’s 774 local governments keep those documents effectively hidden from the public. “For most of Nigeria’s 774 local governments, those budgets are not publicly accessible online,” the report stated.

Ekiti leads, but gaps persist even at the top

Among the 10 states that do publish LGA budget data, Ekiti leads the rankings on transparency. Other states on the list include Ebonyi, Osun, Kebbi, Kogi, Enugu, Kaduna, and Yobe. However, even within this group, BudgIT found that many fall short of providing current, complete, or properly structured information. In other words, making the transparency list does not necessarily mean a state has fully opened its books.

The Nigeria local government budget transparency deficit is particularly glaring given the current policy environment. Following the Supreme Court’s July 2024 judgment on local government fiscal autonomy, the Tinubu administration has argued that councils now control their own allocations directly and therefore bear full responsibility for how they deploy public funds. Yet, without published budgets, citizens, civil society groups, and even journalists cannot track those allocations or hold councils accountable for spending decisions.

BudgIT, which has consistently pushed for open fiscal governance across all tiers of government, framed the report as a mapping exercise rather than a final verdict. Nevertheless, the numbers paint a clear picture: Nigeria’s local government tier remains the least transparent layer of public finance in the country, and the vast majority of state governments have so far done little to change that.