Ogun State under Governor Dapo Abiodun has been placed 31st out of 35 states in BudgIT’s 2026 State of States Fiscal Performance Ranking, a position that puts the Gateway State in the bottom five of the country’s most closely watched annual assessment of subnational finances.
The 11th edition of the report, released on 4 November 2026 under the theme “From Allocation to Impact: Rethinking State Spending Priorities”, reviewed how Nigerian states performed in the 2025 fiscal year. Lagos State, Ogun’s immediate neighbour and the country’s commercial capital, emerged as the best-performing state overall, with Enugu in second place. Cross River sits at the bottom of the table at 35th, with Plateau 34th, Kogi 33rd and Osun 32nd, leaving Ogun just above that group.
The result will sit uneasily with the Abiodun administration, which has repeatedly presented Ogun as one of the country’s leading industrial and investment destinations. The ranking suggests that this standing has not yet translated into the fiscal strength BudgIT’s assessment rewards.
The pressure point is debt. BudgIT’s findings put Ogun’s debt stock at N538.92 billion, which makes it the fourth most indebted state among those assessed. Only Lagos, with a debt stock of about N2.90 trillion, sits far above it in absolute terms, and Lagos has a far larger revenue base against which to carry that burden. Debt sustainability carries 15 per cent of the total score in the revised methodology, so a heavy debt profile weighs directly on a state’s position.
Under that methodology, states were scored across four pillars. Revenue performance accounts for 40 per cent, fiscal viability for 30 per cent, debt sustainability for 15 per cent, and spending on selected critical sectors, namely health, education, agriculture and water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), for the remaining 15 per cent. Revenue and fiscal viability together make up 70 per cent of the weighting, which means a state’s capacity to raise its own money and live within its means largely decides where it lands.
Rivers State was excluded from the exercise because its audited financial statements and budget implementation reports were unavailable, leaving 35 states in the final ranking.
The contrast with the front of the table is sharp. Lagos generated N1.71 trillion in internally generated revenue (IGR) in 2025, a 35.67 per cent rise from N1.26 trillion in 2024, and its total revenue stood at N2.68 trillion. Enugu, in second place, more than doubled its IGR from N180.5 billion to N407.76 billion, a jump of 125.91 per cent, although BudgIT cautioned that non-tax receipts accounted for most of that increase. Even the leaders were told that strong revenue must translate into better public services and measurable development outcomes, which is the central message of this year’s report.
Ogun’s placement is also a regional story. Osun, another South-West state, was ranked 32nd, with debt servicing of N100.17 billion consuming 28.60 per cent of its total revenue. Oyo ranked 22nd and Ekiti 26th. Lagos aside, the South-West did not distinguish itself in the 2026 table, and Ogun’s position near the bottom raises fresh questions about how the region’s states are balancing expansion in spending against sustainable revenue.
BudgIT has framed this year’s edition as a call to move the debate from how much money states receive to what they do with it. For Ogun, whose debt stock is among the largest in the assessment, the ranking points to the need to strengthen revenue mobilisation, keep borrowing in check and show that spending is delivering results in health, education, agriculture and water and sanitation.
At press time, the Ogun State Government had not publicly responded to the ranking.
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Seunmanuel Faleye is a brand and communications strategist. He is a covert writer and an overt creative head. He publishes Apple’s Bite International Magazine.
