Gov. Dauda Lawal Spent N14.6 Billion On Official Vehicles In One Year From A Vote Approved At N3.1 Billion

Secrets Reporters

N14,626,949,873.62 is what Zamfara State spent on the purchase of motor vehicles in 2025, according to official spending records examined by SecretsReporters. The approved budget for the year gave vehicle purchases N3,115,000,000 across the whole state. By the end of the year the provision had been raised to N19,895,000,000, and 73.5 percent of that final figure had been spent.

The raising of a provision inside the year by N16,780,000,000 required a supplementary appropriation passed by the House of Assembly under the Appropriation Law, and the Financial Regulations require that approval to come before the spending, not after it. The records carry the approved figure, the final figure and the amount spent. The final quarter of 2025 alone took N5,375,967,323.52 of the vehicle spending, and N9,250,982,550.10 had gone out by September.

The centre of the spending sits in the Ministry of Finance under a project for the purchase of official vehicles to ministries, departments and agencies. That project was approved at N2,500,000,000 for 2025. The state’s own revised budget book raised the ministry’s vehicle provision to N15,000,000,000, and the following year’s budget book restates the same revised provision as N20,000,000,000. The two official books disagree by N5,000,000,000 on what the revised provision was. Both books record spending of N8,982,123,750.10 on the project by September 2025, and the approved budget for 2026 gives the same project a further N10,000,000,000.

General Services, under the Office of the Secretary to the State Government, entered 2025 with no vehicle provision in the original budget. The revision gave it N4,000,000,000 for the provision of official motor vehicles, and the records show nothing spent against it by the end of the year. For 2026 the same unit’s vehicle provision stands at N80,000,000.

At the Board of Internal Revenue, the vehicle provision moved from N400,000,000 approved to N700,000,000 revised, with N268,858,800 spent by September 2025 and N290,000,000 approved for 2026. The board’s named projects are the purchase of one Hilux Tiger for office use at N100,000,000 and the purchase of six saloon motor vehicles at N300,000,000.

The Ministry of Health carried a revised provision of N200,000,000 in 2025 for the purchase of four Hilux vehicles, and the records show nothing spent on it by September. The Ministry of Works and Infrastructure carried a provision of N600,000,000, revised down to N200,000,000, for the purchase of 50 Toyota buses, and the records show nothing spent on it by September. The same ministry carried a separate vehicle provision of N150,000,000 in the original and revised 2025 budgets, with nothing spent on it by September and no provision carried into 2026. The Ministry for Local Government Affairs, which had a vehicle provision of N65,000,000 in the original 2025 budget, cut to N25,000,000 in the revision with nothing spent by September, is approved N2,625,000,000 for vehicles in 2026, and its projects include vehicles for district heads and a motor vehicle for Emirs.

The spending also sits against the size of the budget that carried it. The approved budget for 2025 gave the purchase of motor vehicles N3,115,000,000 out of a total budget of N546,014,575,000. The final vehicle figure of N19,895,000,000 is more than six times the approved provision, and the amount spent, N14,626,949,873.62, came in a year when total capital spending across the whole state was N170,866,396,929.34 and total spending was N254,418,641,795.22. Of the state-wide vehicle spending, the Ministry of Finance project alone accounts for N8,982,123,750.10 spent by September, against its own original provision of N2,500,000,000.

The approved budget for 2026 carries N12,995,000,000 for the purchase of motor vehicles across the state. By June 2026, N7,284,964,007.40 of it had been spent, which is 56.1 percent of the year’s provision in six months. The Fiscal Responsibility Act requires a state borrowing and spending programme to rest on provisions the legislature has approved, and virement of funds between approved heads requires legislative approval before the movement. The records show the 2025 vehicle provision approved at N3,115,000,000, closed at N19,895,000,000, and spent at N14,626,949,873.62.