Why Nigerian states are broke

The saga between two governors called Godwin took a chunk of news headlines this month. Godwin Obaseki of Edo state and Godwin Emefiele of the Central bank of Nigeria (CBN) went into a verbal tussle over Nigeria's printing money activities and the health of our finances.

In case you missed it, Obaseki accused the federal governments of printing an extra "₦50 to ₦60 billion" for Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) disbursements made to states in March. The newly re-elected PDP governor warned that oil revenues were falling, and the government was now relying on the CBN's printing to make up for the gap.

Emefiele and Nigeria's finance minister, Zainab Ahmed, have both come out to reject the claims made by Obaseki. In fact, Ahmed explained that what happened at the FAAC meeting was almost the opposite. The drop in oil revenues did mean that the March allocation fell by ₦50