A NGBreakingnews scrutiny of Benue State’s official quarterly spending records shows what the Governor’s Office did with its publicity vote in the first half of 2026. The office had N350 million approved for publicity and advertisements for the whole year. By 30 June it had spent N651,944,625.51: 186.3 per cent of the full-year vote, with N301,944,625.51 of it spent beyond what the budget approved. N632,897,125.51 of the spending landed in the first quarter alone, 180.8 per cent of the year’s vote gone before the year was three months old. The second quarter added N19,047,500.
The running lines ran past their votes
Publicity was the worst of it, not the whole of it. Welfare packages took N171,930,808.81 against N145,345,430.81 approved for the year, 118.3 per cent in six months. Plant and generator fuel took N205,263,747.96 against N201,809,011 approved, 101.7 per cent. Foodstuff and catering supplies, voted N598,971,784.44 for the year, had drawn N323,915,042 by June. The Governor’s Office spent N2,538,463,634.86 in the half year, 32.8 per cent of its N7,746,007,050.49 annual budget, and its overhead lines alone consumed N1,979,369,339.11 of the N2,888,109,774.52 approved for them: 68.5 per cent of a full year’s running money burned in six months.
The capital vote stood still
Against that appetite sits the other half of the same office’s record. The Governor’s Office capital vote carried N2,444,656,595.97 approved for the year. It released N318,000 in six months, 0.01 per cent, and every kobo of that went on executive chairs and tables for Government House. The Press House at Government House in Makurdi, voted N1.7 billion, released nothing. Communications and media equipment for Government House, voted N250 million, released nothing. Media and publicity equipment for the office of the Press Secretary, voted N175,080,950, released nothing. A 650KVA generating set for Government House, voted N92,052,110, released nothing. The office overspent the vote that publicises it and released nothing at all on the press house it budgeted N1.7 billion to build.
Smaller offices, the same pattern
The Deputy Governor’s office kept pace at its own scale. Its telephone charges took N7,800,000 against N2,224,847.69 approved for the whole year, 350.6 per cent of the vote in six months. Refreshment and meals took N19,794,400 against N20,448,476.94 approved, 96.8 per cent of the year’s money gone by June. The office of the Chief of Staff, approved N268 million for the year in overhead and capital, recorded nothing spent at all in the half year.
N40 billion voted for security, and the line never moved
Benue’s security vote for 2026, N40 billion for the vote including operations, sits under the Bureau of Internal Affairs and Special Services. In the state’s quarterly records for the first quarter and the second, the line carries no release at all: six months of the year, zero. The Bureau of Homeland Security, approved N2,146,523,150.73 for the year, also released nothing in the half year, and inside its frozen capital vote sit N747,172,411.30 for security gadgets, CCTV cameras, handheld scanners and walkie-talkies and N319,759,947.78 for three surveillance drones. In a state fighting for its farms and its villages, the money voted for security stayed exactly where the budget left it.
The clinic on paper, the treatment abroad
The Government House clinic tells the same story in two budgets. Its renovation, voted N320 million under the Ministry of Works, Housing and Urban Development, released nothing. Its equipment, voted in the Governor’s Office capital lines, released nothing. Between the two, N437,593,149.97 stands voted for a Government House clinic that the records show no work on. Against that zero stands the word of the former Speaker of the Benue State House of Assembly, Titus Uba, who has said publicly that Governor Alia facilitated his treatment abroad during his illness. The clinic is budgeted for and never built. The treatment abroad, on the former Speaker’s own account, happened. The Governor’s Office also carried N2,075,315,130 in grants to communities and NGOs for the year, a discretionary pool bigger than the entire overhead of most ministries, and released N437,912,528.25 of it in the half year.
What an appropriation means
An appropriation is a ceiling fixed by law, not a guide for spending. An office that runs past a line has spent money the budget did not give it, and the lawful route back is a supplementary appropriation passed by the House of Assembly. The state’s quarterly reports record the publicity spending in full, line by line, in the government’s own figures. They record no supplementary appropriation and no virement approval behind the excess. The whole account is the state’s own: an office that spent past its vote on publicity, welfare and fuel, and in the same six months released nothing for its press house, its clinic, its generating set or the N40 billion it voted itself for security.
Follow NGBreakingnews on WhatsApp: join the channel for every exclusive the moment it publishes.
