Education, health receive minimal funding across states – BudgIT

A civic organisation, BudgIT, has revealed that states in Nigeria spent a meagre N6,981 per capita on education and just N3,483 on health in 2024.

This was indicated in the 10th edition of the BudgIT State of States Report published by the organisation.

The PUNCH reports that BudgIT is a civic organisation that applies technology to intersect citizen engagement with institutional improvement.

According to the latest report, states implemented less than 70 per cent of their budgets in both sectors, and no state spent up to N20,000 per person on education or N10,000 on health.

In the education sector, the report revealed that states had cumulatively budgeted N2.41tn on education in the 2024 fiscal year. However, in total, the states only spent N1.61tn, indicating a total implementation rate of 66.92 per cent.

“While this is significant, education is a critical social resource, and states will have to tune into more efficient and effective spending (especially in capital and personnel areas) in subsequent years. Looking at the average implementation of education budgets at 66.92 per cent, we see considerable individual state variability. For instance, only nine states (Edo, Delta, Katsina, Rivers, Yobe, Ekiti, Bayelsa, Bauchi, and Osun) implemented over 80 per cent of their education budgets. Impressively, Edo, Delta, and Katsina implemented over 100 per cent of their education budgets (however, it must be noted that Edo State’s final spend was N24.1bn, while that of Delta was N127.73bn).

In terms of spending on education per capita, the states had an average of N6,981: painfully inadequate. Individually, no state spent up to N20,000 per capita. Only eight states spent more than N10,000 per person.”

Both UNESCO and the World Health Organization recommend allocating 15–20 per cent of the national budget to education and health, respectively, in recognition of their importance to human capital development.

As for health, the states budgeted N1.32tn but were only able to spend N816.64bn, indicating a performance of 61.9 per cent, similar to the range in which the states performed on education.