Who Is Holding Ondo’s Money Hostage?

by Wale Obanigba, Esq.

Ondo State is not struggling because it lacks money. It is struggling because access to that money has been tightly controlled and, in many cases, deliberately withheld. Across the state, a deepening trend has taken root, funds are approved, projects are planned, agencies are ready to act, yet nothing moves. The problem is no longer about revenue or policy. It is about access. Government is not failing for lack of ideas alone, it has also been stalled at the point where execution should begin.

At the centre of this dysfunction is the Ministry of Finance, where the Commissioner has, in practice, transformed public finance from a system of coordination into a mechanism of control. What should be a routine administrative process, the release of duly approved funds, has become a bottleneck. By determining when and how funds are released, she has assumed an outsized influence over the entire machinery of government, effectively deciding which institutions function and which are left to struggle. That level of control is neither healthy nor consistent with the principles of democratic governance.

Even more concerning is the growing perception that while many Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) are left without the funds required to operate, significant resources are being concentrated within the Ministry of Finance itself and in centrally controlled spending areas aligned with her priorities. This creates a clear imbalance. Government is no longer driven by need or public interest, but by selective access to funds. Some sectors are sustained while others are quietly starved. This is not budgeting, it is control by allocation.

This pattern helps explain the persistently low budget performance in Ondo State. The issue is not simply whether funds are available, but whether they are released when needed. A budget cannot succeed if the money tied to it is locked away. Plans cannot be implemented if execution is delayed at will. What we are witnessing is not just poor performance, it is performance being deliberately choked. When funds do not flow, governance cannot function.

Another critical issue is transparency. The management of public revenue in Ondo State is increasingly shrouded in secrecy. While budgets may be announced and figures presented, there is limited clear and consistent disclosure of how funds are actually released, allocated, and spent across MDAs. Revenue inflows, whether from federal allocations or internally generated sources, are not matched with transparent reporting on utilisation. In a properly functioning system, this is where the legislature should step in. Demanding accountability, scrutinising releases, and ensuring that public funds are used as approved. However, that oversight function has been significantly weakened. With the House of Assembly itself struggling to access its own funds, its ability to enforce transparency is severely compromised. The result is a system where financial decisions are made with minimal scrutiny, and public resources are effectively managed behind a veil.

The Ondo State House of Assembly, which is constitutionally meant to control public funds and check the executive, has now been reduced to a weakened institution operating under financial pressure. Lawmakers who approved the budget are reportedly forced to struggle for access to funds already allocated for their own work. This is not oversight, it is dependence disguised as governance. A legislature that must appeal for the release of its own approved funds cannot hold anyone accountable. It loses authority, dignity, and its constitutional purpose, and becomes little more than a rubber stamp operating under financial constraint.

The judiciary presents an even more disturbing reality. Courts are not formally shut, but their independence has been effectively hollowed out. Financial autonomy exists only in theory, while control over judicial funds remains firmly concentrated in the Ministry of Finance. With persistent delays and inadequate releases of its statutory allocations, the judiciary is forced to operate below even basic capacity. This is not administrative inefficiency, it is institutional suffocation. A judiciary that cannot access its own constitutionally approved funds on time is not independent in practice, no matter what the law says. Justice is no longer stopped outright, it is quietly weakened, delayed, and constrained from within.

Across other MDAs, the situation is no different. Projects are stalled, programmes are abandoned, and public servants are left idle or frustrated. Even key offices within the executive struggle to carry out their responsibilities effectively. What should be a coordinated system of governance has been reduced to a structure where institutions wait, sometimes indefinitely for funds that have already been approved. This is not how government is meant to operate.

Attempts to describe this situation as fiscal prudence are unconvincing. Prudence does not mean withholding funds that have been lawfully approved. It does not justify opacity or selective disbursement. Nor does it permit the paralysis of critical institutions. What is being described as discipline increasingly appears to be excessive control that weakens institutions and concentrates power in one place.

The Commissioner for Finance, through this pattern, has moved beyond the traditional role of managing public funds. By controlling their release, she is shaping the very structure of governance in the state. That is where the real danger lies. When one office determines the operational capacity of all others, the balance of government is lost, and the system becomes dependent rather than coordinated.

Ultimately, the responsibility for correcting this rests with the Governor, Hon. Lucky Aiyedatiwa. No commissioner operates above the authority of the governor, and no system of this nature can persist without executive oversight. Approving a budget is only the first step, ensuring that it is implemented is what defines leadership. Where institutions are unable to function due to lack of access to funds, the issue becomes one of governance, not administration.

Ondo State now faces a critical test. Governance cannot continue on the basis of selective funding and delayed releases. Funds must be made available as approved, institutions must be allowed to function independently, and financial management must return to its proper role as a tool of coordination, not control. Until that happens, the state will continue to operate below its capacity, not because it lacks resources, but because those resources are not allowed to work.

In the end, the issue is simple. Ondo State does not lack money. It lacks access to it. And until that changes, governance will remain stalled, institutions will remain weakened, and power will remain dangerously concentrated where it should never have been.