Ondo State Governor, Rotimi Akeredolu

According to latest data by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Ondo State outran thirty-five other states in Nigeria in the accrual of Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) in 2018.

Ondo grew its IGR by more than double to ₦24.79 billion in 2018 from the ₦10.93 billion achieved a year earlier, jumping 11 steps to become the ninth-highest revenue- generating state of the federation after Lagos, Rivers, Ogun, Delta, Kano, Kaduna and Edo state which sustained their positions.

Lagos generated ₦382.2 billion as revenue in 2018, representing a 14.4 percent increase compared with the ₦333.97 billion it realized in 2017.

Rivers recorded a 26 percent growth in its IGR to ₦112.8 billion from the ₦89.5 billion last year while Ogun raised ₦84.55 billion as IGR in 2018, about 13 percent higher than the ₦74.84 billion recorded in the previous year.

The data showed that the combined revenue received by the top three states accounted for 52 percent of the total revenue of ₦1.10 trillion generated by all the states in 2018, which is 17.8 percent more than the ₦936.47 billion recorded in 2017.

The total growth was driven by increases in the IGR of thirty-two states which recorded growth even as Osun, Benue, Cross River and Abia recorded worse revenue performance in the review year compared with 2017.

Osun’s IGR fell the most to ₦10.38 billion from ₦11.73 billion. Benue followed closely with a 9.55 percent decline to ₦11.22 billion from ₦12.4 billion, Cross River was down by 3 percent to ₦17.55 billion from ₦18.1 billion, while Abia recorded a marginal drop of 0.55 percent to ₦14.83 billion in 2018 compared with ₦14.92 billion generated in the previous year.

However, the revenue generated by each of the four states above in 2018 was more than the combined IGR of Yobe, Kebbi, Taraba, Ebonyi, Adamawa, Ekiti, Borno, Katsina, Gombe, Nassarawa, Zamfara, Jigawa and Bauchi states.

Yobe recorded the lowest IGR of ₦4.38 billion. Kebbi trailed with a total IGR of ₦4.88 billion while Taraba generated the third-lowest revenue of ₦5.97 billion in the country in 2018.