Nigeria’s state governors collectively pushed more than half a trillion naira through their Government Houses and travel budgets in the first six months of 2026, even as several of them continue to insist, publicly, that they are underpaid.
An analysis of state budget implementation reports for the first and second quarters of 2026 shows that 33 states spent at least N512.10 billion on running Government Houses, Governors’ Offices and related executive administration, combined with official travel and transport. Comparable figures were unavailable for three states — Edo, Osun and Rivers.
Broken down, N420.01 billion went into Government House and Governor’s Office overheads, while N92.09 billion was recorded under travel and transport. Together, the figure dwarfs what the governors are officially paid to hold office.
The numbers arrive on the heels of a comment by Delta State Governor Sheriff Oborevwori, who recently told an audience in Asaba that his monthly salary as governor is N503,000 — less than the N900,000 paid to permanent secretaries in his own state, and far below the N1 million he said the state’s Head of Service now earns. Speaking while commissioning new duplexes and vehicles for permanent secretaries, Oborevwori said plainly, “my salary is 503,000, Governor’s salary.”
Set against the six-month cost of maintaining Nigeria’s 36 governors in office — the combined salary bill comes to roughly N108.65 million for half a year, or N3.018 million per governor — the contrast with N512.10 billion in Government House and travel spending is stark. That salary total represents only about 0.02 per cent of the identified spending on executive offices and travel, meaning the “journey” from official pay to actual cost of office leads almost nowhere close to matching reality.
A state-by-state breakdown of Government House and Governor’s Office spending in 2026 puts Kogi State firmly at the top of the list, with N65.34 billion — more than 15 per cent of all identifiable spending under that category nationwide. Ogun followed with N45.26 billion, and Lagos was close behind with N45.04 billion.
Other big spenders included Kano (N25.87 billion), Ekiti (N25.22 billion), Cross River (N23.92 billion), Bayelsa (N22.99 billion), Imo (N19.43 billion) and Enugu (N16.20 billion).
At the other end of the scale, Oyo recorded the lowest identifiable spending on Government House and Governor’s Office at about N1.95 billion, followed by Sokoto (N2.20 billion), Kwara (N2.59 billion) and Abia (N2.78 billion).
On travel and transport specifically, Plateau State topped the chart with N10.11 billion spent in the first half of 2026 alone. Lagos followed with N8.23 billion, and Taraba recorded N5.16 billion. Niger (N4.45 billion), Ekiti (N4.41 billion), Bauchi (N3.75 billion) and Yobe (N3.68 billion) rounded out the higher end, while Oyo (N667.52 million) and Kano (N626.95 million) recorded the smallest identifiable travel outlays.
Compared with the first half of 2025, when N557.80 billion was recorded across the same spending heads, the 2026 figure of N512.10 billion represents a decline of about N45.70 billion, or roughly 8.19 per cent — driven mainly by a drop in Government House and executive administration spending, which fell by about 9.69 per cent. Travel and transport costs, however, barely moved, slipping by less than one per cent.
The state-level trends varied sharply. Kogi’s Government House spending jumped by about 25.66 per cent year-on-year, while Cross River’s more than doubled, rising by roughly 141 per cent. Bayelsa’s spending climbed nearly 59 per cent, and Lagos recorded one of the steepest increases nationally, up by about 74 per cent. By contrast, Ogun and Kano both posted double-digit reductions in their Government House expenditure.
The figures do not represent governors’ personal earnings. Government House and Governor’s Office budget lines typically cover administrative operations, staffing, protocol, official residences, utilities, security-related activities and state functions, while travel and transport spending covers official trips and transportation across the wider state public service. Even so, the scale of the numbers has reignited debate over the true cost of running Nigeria’s state executive structures, at a time when states have received sharply higher federal allocations following recent economic reforms.
Development economist Aliyu Ilias argued that Nigeria’s executive offices have become unusually costly to run partly because political office holders exert outsized control over how those institutions are funded, with little pushback from state legislatures. He suggested that isolating a governor’s basic salary from the far larger costs and privileges attached to the office paints a misleading picture of what governance actually costs taxpayers.
The debate comes as the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), the body constitutionally responsible for setting the pay of governors and other political office holders, says its review of remuneration for executive and legislative officials is at an advanced stage, with proposed legislation expected before the National Assembly.
It also comes against a backdrop of surging federal allocations to states. Finance ministry data show that N47.25 trillion was shared through the Federation Account between 2023 and 2025 alone — more than half of the N93.13 trillion distributed over the previous nine years combined — intensifying scrutiny over whether the extra resources are translating into better roads, schools, hospitals and public services, or simply funding grander government houses and more frequent flights.
For now, the gap between what governors say they earn and what it actually costs to keep them in office remains one of the more uncomfortable arithmetic problems in Nigerian public finance — a journey, critics say, that keeps consuming public funds without a clear destination in sight.
