Kwara as one of the two most independently solvent states in northern Nigeria

By Dr. Sheriff A. Ibrahim (Gold)

Lately, the Kwara polity has been inundated with political rhetoric that has little or nothing to do with governance and the general wellbeing of the people. While this is normal in a political season, as responsible stakeholders, we owe the people the duty of truth and enlightenment that will rightly shape their voting decisions. One such truth is contained in the recent BusinessDay report that cuts through the noise and positions Kwara State as one of only two out of 19 northern states that can pay workers’ salaries without waiting for money from Abuja every month.

In finance, that is called solvency — the degree to which the current assets of an individual or entity exceed its current liabilities. In the case of Kwara, however, we are talking about independent solvency: a situation where an individual, business, or government has sufficient financial resources to fully cover all its debts, expenses, and liabilities without relying on external financial support. For a state, that means without relying on federal allocation from FAAC.

As a layman, think of Kwara State like a household. Every month you have bills to pay: salaries for teachers, nurses, civil servants, pensioners, etc. These are called personnel costs. Most states depend on allocation from Abuja to meet these obligations. What this means is that if federal allocation drops, salaries for workers are adversely affected -just as Kwara experienced under the previous Abdulfatah Ahmed-led government, despite a far lower minimum wage at the time.

For Kwara under Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, our current position of independent solvency means that even if Abuja money doesn’t come, the state can still pay its workers from its own Internally Generated Revenue (IGR). IGR is the money the state collects on its own from taxes, business levies, fees, and other sources.

When Governor AbdulRazaq came on board in 2019, the story was different. He inherited a Kwara burdened with serious debt, unpaid salaries and pensions, and weak revenue. However, from 2019 till date, IGR has soared. This is because Kwara’s tax system got better, leakages were blocked, and the tax net was widened through deliberate economic policies and interventions that stimulated the establishment of new businesses and the sustainability of existing ones – all now paying tax properly.

There is also fiscal discipline. Government has avoided wasteful spending, prioritized what matters, and managed resources prudently. Systems were fixed so that money does not just disappear without trace. Consequently, Kwara can now meet its salary obligations without panicking every time FAAC allocation drops.

It should ordinarily not be a big deal, but this is the same Kwara where the PDP government was unable to pay salaries even at the below-N30,000 minimum wage, despite the combination of IGR, FAAC, and even diverted UBEC counterpart funds. At some point, they also got Federal Government bailout funds, as well as Paris Club refunds, and still could not meet salary obligations.

Today, at the N70,000 minimum wage, with peculiar allowances included – raising the gross take-home of the least earning civil servant in Kwara to over N90,000 – the AbdulRazaq-led APC government is able to pay civil servants from our IGR alone. This is one of the critical comparative baselines for where Kwara was and where it is today.

In 2019, Kwara was struggling. In 2026, it is standing on its own feet financially. That is not political rhetoric. That is evidence-based progress.

As we head toward the 2027 general elections, Kwarans are faced with a choice: to sustain the evident progress, or to return to the unenviable, retrogressive old order.

As for me, Iwaju Lan Lo!