As it is now, 33 out of the 36 states of Nigerian states have presented their budget to their respective State Houses of Assembly. The states that are yet to present theirs are Adamawa, Cross River and Zamfara.
Lagos State, the commercial and financial nerve centre of Nigeria, presented a budget of N852.317 billion, N548 billion lower than the N1.4 trillion presented for 2018. The proposed budget of Lagos State for 2019 is the highest nationwide, though this is not surprising, as the state has the largest internally generated revenue in Nigeria.
The states with the second and third highest proposed budget for 2019 are Akwa Ibom and Rivers. The two south-southern states earmarked N670.7 billion and N480 billion, respectively.
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Nasarawa, a state in the North-central zone, presented a budget worth N86.4 billion, the least across the federation. The state has endowment in agriculture, tourism and solid minerals like coal and iron ore.
Apart from Nasarawa, eight states proposed a budget less than N150 billion are Abia (N139.5bn), Borno (N125.82bn), Enugu (N109bn), Ekiti (N129.9bn), Gombe (N118.7bn), Kogi (N146.7bn), Plateau (N148bn) and Taraba (N146.7bn).
Regional analysis of the budget of the 33 states shows that the South-West region has the highest cumulative budget of N2.011 trillion, higher than that of South-South, which currently stood at N1.793 trillion, but could be overtaken if Cross River State present a budget of at least N219 billion.
The combined budget of South-East, North-Central and North-West currently stand at N878 billion, N894.34 billion and N1.053 trillion, respectively.
The North-East region has the lowest cumulative budget of N676 billion, although can only exceed that of the South-East region if Zamfara State proposes at least N202 budget for 2019.
