A report has surfaced revealing the amount expended by 14 states in Nigeria on Foreign trips alone.
The report shows a whooping N21.04bn in total had been expended on foreign trips between 2021 and 2023.
It further reveals that despite the huge amount spent on foreign trips in the last three years, these 14 state governments have failed to attract any form of foreign investments into the domains.
The states in question are Bauchi, Bayelsa, Benue, Borno, Cross River, Ebonyi, Edo, Gombe, Imo, Jigawa, Nasarawa, Taraba, Yobe, and Zamfara. Between 2021 and the third quarter of 2023, these states failed to attract any of the $14.85bn that foreign investors channelled into Nigeria.
Between 2021 and 2023, Bauchi spent N3.81bn on foreign trips without having anything to show for it.
- Bayelsa spent N1.99bn.
- Benue spent N1.33bn.
- Borno spent N1.73bn.
- Cross River spent N663.16m.
- Ebonyi spent N1.01bn.
- Edo spent N1.77bn.
- Gombe spent N32.09m.
- Imo spent N541.23m.
- Jigawa spent N1.10bn.
- Nasarawa spent N541.26m.
- Taraba spent N2.52bn.
- Yobe spent N1.24bn.
- Zamfara spent N2.77bn.
The figures for foreign trips were extracted from state budget performance reports sourced from Open Nigerian States. Many of the states didn’t have their full budget performance reports with some only having for two quarters in some instances.