Akwa Ibom publishes Q2 budget report but fails to show where trillions went

Akwa Ibom State Government has published its second-quarter 2026 budget implementation report, but the three-page document leaves major gaps in its account of public spending.

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Missing details, the BudgIT Foundation says, make it difficult for citizens to determine where trillions of naira received by the government were spent.

The finding places Akwa Ibom in a peculiar position: while 34 states published their Q2 2026 Budget Implementation Reports, BudgIT singled out Akwa Ibom for publishing a report that, despite being publicly available, contains “significant data gaps” that limit meaningful scrutiny of government expenditure.

In its report, Half-Year BIR Status and Comparative Insights 2026/2025, BudgIT said publishing a budget implementation report should not be treated as transparency if the information disclosed is incomplete or unusable.

“Publishing a BIR is not enough, but the data must be complete and usable,” BudgIT said.

“While Akwa Ibom State published its Q2 2026 BIR, the report contains significant data gaps that limit public scrutiny of government spending.”

The criticism raises fresh questions about fiscal transparency in Akwa Ibom, where Governor Umo Eno’s administration has received over ₦2.943 trillion in 38 months, according to revenue data previously reported by PREMIUM TIMES.

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With detailed revenue and expenditure information missing from the state’s budget implementation reports, citizens are left with limited means to independently determine whether all the state’s revenue sources are remitted to the state coffers and where portions of the public funds received by the government have gone.

BudgIT said it had formally raised concerns with the Akwa Ibom State Government over the omissions but received no response.

“Transparency requires disclosure—not just publication,” the organisation said.

Report without enough answers

BudgIT said the Akwa Ibom case shows that publishing a fiscal document does not automatically constitute transparency.

“A published report can still leave out important information,” the foundation said.

“Take Akwa Ibom. The state published its Q2 BIR, but it didn’t give enough information to show where all the money went.”

The finding is consistent with PREMIUM TIMES’ reporting on the state’s declining fiscal disclosure under Mr Eno.

The newspaper has consistently reported that the state government stopped publishing detailed BIRs starting in the first quarter of 2025, replacing them with a three-page summary that was later increased to a five-page summary in the second quarter of 2026.

When Mr Eno was recently asked in a live interview for details on how the state’s accrued trillions are spent, he referenced the state’s audited financial statements for more comprehensive information.

However, PREMIUM TIMES reported that the audited financial statements also fail to provide sufficient details of capital expenditure, meaning the alternative source cited by the governor does not fully close the information gap.

An investigative report by PREMIUM TIMES in January found that Akwa Ibom had slipped deeper into fiscal secrecy under Mr Eno, despite his commitment to fiscal transparency in his manifesto and provisions of the state’s Fiscal Responsibility Law.

The latest BudgIT report now raises a similar concern from a national assessment of state-level fiscal disclosure.

National compliance falls

Across Nigeria, BudgIT found that 34 of the 36 states had published their Q2 2026 BIRs, representing 94.4 per cent compliance.

Osun and Rivers states accounted for the remaining 5.6 per cent, with no Q2 2026 BIR available for either state.

The 2026 figure indicates a decline from the second quarter of 2025, when 35 states, or 97.2 per cent, had published their BIRs.

“While compliance remained unchanged between Q1 and Q2 2026, the year-on-year decline suggests a setback in fiscal transparency,” BudgIT said.

Rivers State remained non-compliant throughout both years, while Osun was added to the list in Q2 2026.

While some states failed to publish their reports altogether, BudgIT’s assessment of Akwa Ibom reveals another aspect of the transparency issue: a report can be published and still prevent citizens from properly tracking their money.