If a state government can allegedly smuggle N210 million into the budget for one photocopier in a liaison office, then every Nigerian has no choice but to become a part-time budget police officer, because clearly, the documents will not audit themselves.
Development Diaries reports that the government of Abia State, southeast Nigeria, has clarified that it did not allocate N250 million for the purchase of a photocopier for its Lagos Liaison Office.
According to officials, the eye-watering figure had somehow wandered away from another line item, while the ‘real’ allocation for the copier was N12 million, correctly reflected elsewhere.
Whether you call it a typo, a table mishap, or a wandering number, the damage had been done.
But even as that fire was burning, another Abia-related claim that Governor Alex Otti had dragged the federal government to a ‘World Court’ over approvals for an Aba cargo airport and seaport was making the rounds online.
As expected, the state government dismissed it outright, calling it pure fabrication.
Still, the rumour spread far enough to show that governance in Nigeria now has two battlefields, involving the one inside official documents and the one inside people’s phones.
These controversies reflect the new reality of subnational governance where citizens no longer wait for experts, as they zoom into PDFs, cross-check budgets, and fact-check politicians in real time.
In Abia, the focus is not whether the governor is a saint or not, but its fiscal transparency system.
And that system is being tested on the four fronts of whether citizens can easily access and understand state budgets; whether errors are rare and quickly corrected; whether transparency leads to accountability instead of press releases; and whether there is a clean line from budget to procurement to actual results.
Abia has proudly declared that it published the 2026 budget online in line with transparency commitments.
That is good, but transparency’s true test arrives when the published document becomes uncomfortable. So, the photocopier saga matters, even if it was genuinely a typo, because Nigerians have history on their side.
Inflated line items have been part of our national budget culture longer than some state capitals have had streetlights. So when a number looks suspicious, the public should naturally react.
And while Abia’s explanation may be correct, the incident raises an important question in relation to quality control. A transparent government must run its budget process like an audit firm because citizens now audit like detectives.
Abia’s officials reminded the public that budgets are mere estimates, not automatic spending. That may be technically correct, but Nigerians know that inflated estimates often become inflated contracts if no one is watching.
The ‘World Court’ rumour is another symptom of our era, with misinformation now competing with official statements, and whoever speaks more convincingly, truth or falsehood, wins the day.
This is why, as Nigerians, we must audit both the state and the WhatsApp broadcast with equal seriousness, and learn to audit states like active shareholders, not cheerleaders.
That starts with the three documents of Appropriation Law, the detailed breakdown of every ministry’s spending, and the quarterly budget performance reports that show what was actually released.
If a government only gives the headlines, then that is not transparency but PR.
When a suspicious line item trends, the responsible thing is to perform a quick sanity check by verifying whether the same item appears elsewhere with a different figure, whether the price is comparable to market reality, and whether the line item could be masking a larger project.
In Abia’s case, tracking procurement for the Lagos liaison office in the coming quarters will reveal whether the photocopier truly costs N12 million, and nothing more.
But budgets do not end in documents. Citizens need to follow the money to the streets by visiting capital project sites, taking photos, and comparing what is on the ground with what is on paper.
At the same time, misinformation must be treated as a governance threat. So before forwarding the next ‘World Court’ story, we should ask for sources, look for confirmation from reputable outlets, and check for a government response.
For the state government, it needs to publish an update correcting every error clearly, not in press statements, but in the budget document itself, with page references.
It should also release quarterly performance reports, open procurement processes for high-risk items like renovations and liaison offices, and host a public budget clinic so citizens can understand the codes, figures, and categories without needing a PhD in public finance.
Meanwhile, residents can begin an ‘Abia Budget Watch’ tracker, file information requests about the Lagos liaison office procurement, and build community audit teams to track ongoing projects.
The State Assembly, for its part, should hold oversight hearings on budget accuracy, and the Ministry of Information should develop a real-time fact-check page to beat misinformation at its own speed.
