INVESTIGATION | How N7.1bn ‘vanished’ from four Kwara LGs in one year

Over N7.1 billion reportedly spent by four local government authorities in Kwara State on elderly welfare in 2025 cannot be traced to any verifiable programme, an investigation by The Informant247 has found.

Financial records of the four local government areas reviewed by The Informant247 show that a total of N7,100,001,907 was recorded under budget lines: “Social Protection for Old Age”.

A breakdown of the figures seen in the financial document of the four local government areas show Moro LG recorded N2,105,380,874.16 under the category, Asa LG N1,269,447,230.28, Ilorin South LG N2,571,974,193.95 and Kaiama LG N1,153,199,608.68. Ekiti LG, meanwhile, has a smaller entry of N13,863,500.

On paper, the spendings suggest a wide-reaching social intervention targeted at elderly residents. But findings from multiple communities indicate no visible implementation of such programmes.

Residents across the affected councils told The Informant247 they have neither benefited from nor witnessed any initiative consistent with the spending.

“It is our children that are taking care of us, not the government,” said Rukayat Ibrahim, an elderly resident of Alapa in Asa Local Government Area. “There is nothing like support for old people here. We have not seen anything.”

In Ilorin South, the story is the same. At Sango, 68-year-old Musa Ibrahim said he had never heard of any council-backed welfare scheme for the aged.

“If such money was spent, we should feel it,” he said. “Even if it is small support, words would go round. But there has been nothing.”

In Kaiama, where over N1.1 billion was reportedly spent, residents expressed disbelief when told of the figures.

“This is the first time I am hearing this,” said Safiyah Abdullahi, a trader. “Our parents are suffering. There is no programme from the local government for them.”

A community leader in Moro who requested not to be named for fear of reprisals described the figures as “shocking”, noting that no evidence of such spending exists at the community level.

“We have many elderly people here who need support,” he said. “If this kind of money was truly spent, it would be visible. There would be records, beneficiaries, something the public can point to. But there is nothing like that.”

Further checks by The Informant247 found no public documentation, beneficiary lists or visible implementation structures tied to the “Social Protection for Old Age” programme in any of the councils reviewed.

“We survive on what our children give us,” said Adeyemi in Ilorin South. “If the government is spending this kind of money on us, then where is it?”

Expert weighs in

Weighing in, an anti-corruption advocate, Comrade Moshood Lanre Osho, said social protection programmes are typically designed as conditional cash transfers or basic support schemes targeted at vulnerable groups such as the elderly.

He said that although his organisation had not yet reviewed the financial records in detail, there was no evidence in the public space to match the scale of spending indicated.

“Social protection programmes for old ideally should be in form of conditional cash transfer or some form of basic amenities programme targeted at old people,” he said. “Though we have not had time to go through the financial statement of the Local Governments, we did not hear or see anything that commensurate with the figures you mentioned.”

Osho added that while a definitive conclusion could not yet be reached, such a large expenditure would ordinarily have been visible.

“We cannot conclude yet because we are yet to investigate at our organisation, but on a basic level, if anything of such occurred with that much money, we should have seen it in the media or read it in newspapers,” he said.

Speaking on local government spending, he said there is lack of transparency in how funds are managed.

“We all know that there is no transparency in the local government in terms of how they spend their money. We have written to them to request for their spending but they did not respond. Our legal representative at ENETSUD will soon be writing them,” he said.

On transparency at the state level, Osho said his organisation is currently in court with several government agencies over access to information.

“We are currently in court with eight Kwara MDAs because they refuse to disclose information to us despite claiming to have domesticated the FOI,” he said. “They have been hoarding information and I can say boldly that there is no transparency in both the local and state government in Kwara State.”

No official response

Efforts to obtain official responses were unsuccessful. Calls to the chairmen of the affected local government areas were not returned as of the time of filing this report.