Ekiti State 2026 Budget Breakdown: A Critical Look at Priorities, Public Welfare & Primary Healthcare Funding
In October 2025, the Ekiti State Government under Governor Biodun Abayomi Oyebanji formally presented the 2026 Appropriation Bill to the Ekiti State House of Assembly. Tagged the “Budget of Impactful Governance,” the total fiscal framework was set at ₦415.572 billion — an 11% increase over the prior fiscal year — with stated intentions of continuing critical infrastructure work, boosting agriculture, and enhancing wealth creation across the state.
The announcement should have sparked optimism. After all, Ekiti — like most Nigerian states — grapples with deep poverty, socio‑economic inequalities, and systemic public service deficits. However, a deeper dive into the budget’s structure and allocations reveals serious concerns about where priorities truly lie, especially as they affect primary healthcare, the most essential public service for the everyday citizen.
Fiscal Overview: Recurring vs Capital Spending
According to official government sources, the 2026 Ekiti State budget allocates roughly:
₦221.87 billion (53%) to recurrent expenditure — including salaries, overheads, and allowances
₦193.70 billion (47%) to capital expenditure — investment in actual projects and infrastructure
Under the surface, these headline figures disguise important choices about prioritizing administrative and governance costs versus social service delivery.
Where is the Care for Primary Healthcare?
One of the most controversial aspects of the Ekiti 2026 budget — sparking outrage among citizens — is the alleged extremely low allocation to Primary Healthcare Centers (PHCs), the frontline institutions where the most vulnerable — children, pregnant women, the elderly, and low‑income families — access basic medical care.
For a state reportedly home to a majority of low‑income residents, underinvestment in PHCs can have immediate human consequences. For example, preventive services like immunizations, maternal care, and routine disease management are delivered at PHCs. When these facilities are neglected, patients end up in overcrowded secondary or tertiary hospitals — which are harder to reach, more expensive to operate, and often lack funding themselves.
Although publicly released budget documents do not itemize every sector down to the line‑item level, available summaries suggest that the percentage of total budget directed to health — and specifically public health service delivery — is distressingly low when compared to expectations and to national needs.
Primary Healthcare in Nigeria: Bigger Picture Needs
To understand why underfunding PHCs is such a critical issue, it helps to look at the national context:
Across Nigeria, primary healthcare systems often function with outdated equipment, chronic drug shortages, unstable personnel deployment, and limited financial support.
A BudgIT analysis of 2024 health funding across all 36 states found that only seven states implemented over 80% of their health budgets, pointing to systemic challenges in converting budget figures into real‑world impact.
Even when health allocations rise in aggregate across the country, many state‑level budgets fail to translate these funds into effective service delivery, especially at the primary care level — where the majority of Nigerians seek healthcare.
In other words, the issue isn’t just how much money is in the budget — it’s whether enough is explicitly allocated to essential services like PHCs that benefit the majority of the population.
Public Discontent: Ekiti Citizens Speak
Many citizens, activists, and civil society organizations have strongly criticized the Ekiti 2026 budget for the disproportionate emphasis on administrative costs, allowances, and governance overhead compared to direct investment in human capital and social services.
A particularly inflammatory claim that spread widely on social media and civic forums was that Ekiti State earmarked only ₦68 million for primary healthcare facilities within the ₦415.572 billion budget — an allocation that amounts to a tiny fraction of total expenditure. By contrast, large sums were reportedly set aside for sit‑tight allowances, honoraria, and refreshments for government officials. While this specific line‑item figure has not been published in detailed government budget breakdowns, the public perception of skewed priorities reflects a deep gap between government rhetoric and citizens’ lived reality. (Your original concern)
For a population where a significant portion lives below the poverty line — and where many families cannot afford private healthcare — underfunding public health services is not merely an accounting issue, it is a governance failure with life‑and‑death implications.
Economic Challenges & Budget Trade‑offs
To be fair to policymakers, Ekiti’s budget must navigate economic constraints that affect all Nigerian states:
Nigeria’s economy continues to slow under inflationary pressure, currency volatility, and persistent debt obligations.
State revenues are heavily dependent on federal allocations and VAT revenue, limiting autonomous revenue generation.
Nevertheless, budget documents from Ekiti and other Nigerian states reveal a consistent pattern: recurrent costs, allowances, and administrative overheads often consume more than half the total budget, leaving social sectors like health and education under‑resourced. This pattern mirrors similar findings across Nigeria’s 36 state budgets, where health sector spending — even when increased — is rarely sufficient to meet primary care needs.
The Case for Rebalancing the Budget
There are three compelling arguments for why Ekiti’s 2026 budget should be recalibrated to reflect public welfare needs:
1. Public Health is an Investment, Not a Cost
Investments in primary healthcare reduce long‑term public expenditures by preventing disease, lowering hospital admissions, and improving workforce productivity.
Studies from international development organizations and Nigerian civic researchers show that every naira spent on primary prevention yields multiple naira in economic benefit through reduced disease, increased productivity, and lower catastrophic health expenses for families. (General principle, widely supported by health economics literature)
2. Citizens Need Real Accountability
Transparency is essential. Without clear, easily accessible line‑item budgets showing exact amounts earmarked for PHCs, immunization, maternal care, and public hospitals, citizens cannot measure whether their government is meeting public service obligations.
Civil society groups like BudgIT and others have long advocated for open budgeting to improve accountability and reduce wastage.
3. Governance Must Reflect Human Needs
Citizens are not merely statistics to be managed; they are humans whose quality of life should be central to fiscal priorities. Infrastructure like roads and agriculture is important, but without healthy people, economic development is hollow.
Conclusion: What the 2026 Budget Means for Everyday Ekiti People
The Ekiti State 2026 budget, while sizable, reflects choices that prioritize governance and capital projects over core social welfare services. For the average Ekiti resident — the market woman, the pregnant mother, the school child, the smallholder farmer — access to quality healthcare should not be a secondary concern.
True impactful governance should ensure that basic human needs — especially health and education — are adequately funded, monitored, and delivered. Without this, the state’s fiscal ambitions risk leaving the most vulnerable further behind.
As Ekiti moves into 2026, civic participation, transparent budgeting, and public accountability must rise in tandem with the numbers. Citizens deserve a budget that reflects their needs, not just the ceremonial commitments of governance elites.
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