Words matter. They frame reality before facts are examined; they sculpt perception before spreadsheets are opened. In public finance, language is never neutral. “Generated,” “projected,” “record-breaking,” “optimised” – each term does more than describe; it signals competence, ambition, even triumph. But words, however burnished, cannot carry legitimacy on their own. They must be escorted by evidence. Numbers too, are not innocent. They do not merely count; they confer legitimacy, command applause, and sometimes, conceal fractures beneath polished surfaces. When Enugu State announced that it generated ₦406.77 billion in Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) in 2025, an 80 percent performance of its ₦509.95 billion projection and a 125 percent leap over 2024, the figure landed like a thunderclap. In a federation where most states survive on FAAC oxygen, such fiscal muscle is not routine. It is disruptive. However, disruption, especially when amplified by declarative language, inevitably invites scrutiny.
APC Chieftain, Chief Basil Ani, has called the number “impressive” but brittle, arguing that it collapses under interrogation. His challenge is blunt. If Enugu truly earned over ₦400 billion in a single year, why do pension arrears persist? Why are contractors unpaid? Why are flagship projects such as the Nike-Opi Road dualisation incomplete? Why does the cost of living in the state remain punishing? In his framing, the number is either mismanaged abundance or inflated theatre – “a boast without impact.”
On the other side stands the Chairman of the Enugu State Internal Revenue Service (ENSIRS), Emmanuel Nnamani, offering a structured defence. He traces the trajectory: ₦26.8 billion in 2022 (₦16.2bn tax; ₦10.6bn non-tax), ₦37.4 billion in 2023, ₦180.5 billion in 2024 (with ₦150bn from non-tax sources), and now ₦406.77 billion in 2025, of which ₦355.2 billion (87.4 percent) is non-tax revenue, and ₦51.5 billion (12.6 percent) tax. The growth, he says, follows a strategic pivot under Governor Peter Mbah: asset optimisation, recovery of natural resources, revival of moribund enterprises like Sunrise Flour Mill and Niger Gas, plugging leakages, digitising collections, and reducing dependence on FAAC.
Between accusation and explanation lies the narrow corridor of public trust. The question is not whether numbers can grow. They can. The question is whether growth translates into felt development and whether the architecture of that growth is structurally sound. First, the scale of the leap deserves context. Moving from ₦26.8 billion in 2022 to ₦406.77 billion in 2025 represents a more than fifteen-fold increase in three fiscal cycles. Even accounting for inflation, currency volatility, and policy shifts, such acceleration is extraordinary. Extraordinary claims do not automatically imply falsehood; they simply demand extraordinary transparency.
The composition of the 2025 figure is instructive. Tax revenue at ₦51.5 billion reflects a 72 percent rise from ₦30 billion in 2024, which is a strong but plausible expansion if compliance improved and the tax net widened. The real revolution is non-tax revenue: ₦355.2 billion. That is where the story thickens. Non-tax revenue is a capacious basket. It may include dividends from state-owned enterprises, fees, royalties, mineral proceeds, asset sales, concessions, fines, and other administrative receipts. When such a category accounts for nearly nine-tenths of total IGR, clarity becomes not optional but compulsory. What portion came from coal exploitation? Were the proceeds recurring royalties or one-off signature bonuses? Were there asset sales, equity divestments, or concession fees booked as revenue? What accounting standards govern the recognition of these inflows? Are they audited independently and published in disaggregated form?
Fiscal credibility is not built on aggregate numbers alone but on the granularity beneath them. Ani’s critique about pension arrears and contractor payments strikes at the moral centre of governance. Pension obligations are not discretionary expenditure; they are deferred wages. If arrears persist, two explanations are possible. One: the revenue inflows are not as liquid or as recurrent as suggested; perhaps, they are tied to capital-intensive, long-gestation projects or earmarked uses. Two: prioritisation has favoured capital expansion over social obligations. Neither scenario automatically indicts the revenue figure, but both require explanation.
Cash flow is not the same as revenue. A state may record substantial inflows tied to specific projects or partnerships, yet face timing mismatches in meeting recurrent obligations. However, where public perception sees unpaid retirees alongside headline billions, trust begins to wobble and erode. Optics matter because governance is also theatre; yet, it must be theatre anchored in substance. The ENSIRS chairman emphasises asset optimisation and the revival of dormant enterprises. If Sunrise Flour Mill and Niger Gas have indeed moved from liabilities to revenue-generating assets, that marks a structural shift. States that sweat their assets reduce dependency and enlarge fiscal space. Likewise, plugging leakages through technology can produce dramatic improvements in compliance and traceability. These are orthodox reforms in modern public finance.
However, asset-based revenue models carry risks. Natural resource proceeds can be volatile, subject to commodity cycles and contractual opacity. One-off windfalls can inflate annual figures without guaranteeing sustainability. If 87.4 percent of IGR rests on non-tax sources, the durability of that base must be demonstrated. A revenue revolution that depends on episodic extraction is a sprint; development requires a marathon. The projection of ₦870 billion IGR for 2026 intensifies the stakes. If achieved, Enugu would approach revenue levels that dwarf historical patterns for subnational entities in Nigeria. Such ambition is not inherently problematic; it signals confidence. All the same, projections untethered from publicly verifiable data risk converting fiscal policy into speculative fiction.
Ani’s other charge concerns the lived economy: aggressive levies, enforcement actions, and a high cost of living. Here, subtlety is essential. The ENSIRS breakdown shows tax revenue at ₦51.5 billion, just 12.6 percent of total IGR. If accurate, this weakens the claim that residents are being “squeezed” solely to manufacture revenue headlines. However, perception may arise not from the quantum of tax revenue but from the manner of collection – multiple agencies, overlapping fees, or coercive enforcement can generate public resentment even if the aggregate tax share is modest. Fiscal reform must therefore, be matched by regulatory reform. Efficiency in collection should not translate into intimidation in execution. Citizens are not revenue tools; they are shareholders in the state.
What then is the responsible position? First, the Enugu State Government should publish a comprehensive, independently audited breakdown of the ₦406.77 billion IGR. This should itemise non-tax sources: royalties, dividends, concessions, asset sales, fees, fines, and other receipts. It should clarify which inflows are recurrent and which are one-off. It should disclose contractual frameworks governing mineral and enterprise revenues. Transparency is not an admission of guilt; it is an inoculation against suspicion.
Second, expenditure patterns must be aligned visibly with revenue growth. Clearing pension arrears, settling certified contractor claims, and accelerating completion of high-impact infrastructure will convert arithmetic into evidence. Development is the proof of revenue. A road completed speaks louder than a spreadsheet circulated.
Third, sustainability must guide ambition. A tax-to-IGR ratio of 12.6 percent suggests heavy reliance on non-tax sources. Over time, a balanced mix is healthier. Robust, broad-based taxation – fairly administered – provides stability. Resource and asset income can supplement, but not substitute, a diversified revenue base.
Fourth, citizen engagement should deepen. Fiscal town halls, published quarterly performance reports, and open-data portals can bridge the trust deficit. In an era where numbers travel faster than context, proactive disclosure is strategic governance.
Chief Ani’s scepticism, stripped of partisan colour, performs a democratic function. Opposition from within is not obstruction; it is audit by other means. Yet, critique must also concede the possibility of reform-driven success. If Enugu has indeed engineered a structural fiscal turnaround, it deserves acknowledgement, tempered by verification. The danger lies at both extremes: reflexive dismissal of any impressive figure as fabrication, and uncritical celebration of any large number as achievement. Governance is not a duel of press statements; it is a ledger that must balance in reality. Enugu’s fiscal narrative now stands at a crossroads. It can become a model of subnational resource optimisation, showing how a state once dependent on federal allocations reclaims its economic spine. Or it can become another episode in Nigeria’s long chronicle of announced abundance and experienced scarcity.
Ultimately, revenue is a means, not an end. The end is dignity for retirees who served their state, liquidity for contractors who built its roads, affordable living for its residents, and infrastructure that outlives press releases. The Nike-Opi road dualisation still reads more like a declaration than a destination, its progress lingering around ceremonial clearings and televised demolitions rather than sustained construction. In Nsukka, the state’s second largest urban centre, major arteries strain under neglect; Orba Road, delivered by the immediate past administration, has receded into a geography of potholes and patchwork. Promised Smart Schools in the zone remain more conceptual renderings than fully completed, commissioned institutions shaping young minds. If ₦406.77 billion has indeed been generated, its signature should not hover in budget speeches; it must settle tangibly in asphalt that endures the rains, classrooms that open their doors, hospitals that function without deficit, and pension arrears finally written off the ledger of neglect.
Numbers confer power; transparency confers legitimacy. Enugu has announced the former; it must now entrench the latter. Revenue proclaimed in columns must be traceable in concrete, steel, salaries, and settled obligations. A figure of ₦406.77 billion cannot remain an abstraction suspended in budget documents; it must descend into roads that endure the monsoon, schools that open with teachers and students inside them, hospitals that function beyond ribbon-cuttings, boreholes and pipe-born water taps that dispense water, and pension accounts no longer shadowed by arrears.
Public finance is ultimately a covenant. Every naira collected is a promissory note issued to the citizenry. The strength of that note lies not in the boldness of its headline but in the clarity of its ledger and the visibility of its outcomes. In the arithmetic of trust, addition is not performed on paper alone; it is tested in streets, markets, classrooms, and pay slips. Only when revenue survives the audit of lived experience does it mature from statistic to stewardship.
That the measured scepticism comes not from a rival political party but from within the ruling APC alters its weight. It is quite challenging to caricature an internal critic as a professional naysayer. A dissenting voice from the same political household reframes the debate from partisan sparring to institutional introspection. In that sense, the moment echoes the biblical admonition: “Medice, cura te ipsum” as captured in Luke 4:23 – ‘Physician, heal thyself’. When scrutiny arises at home, it demands not deflection but demonstration.
The most effective rebuttal to doubt will not be rhetoric but records; not counter-accusation but completion; not projection but proof. If the numbers are sound, let them stand the test of disclosure and delivery. In doing so, government aligns its numbers with its nouns, its projections with its proofs, affirming that in the grammar of governance, words matter most when they are made flesh in transparent accounts and measurable outcomes, and that accountability constitutes the paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations that gives public finance its meaning.
