OSOGBO — A wave of deep public fury has erupted following revelations that the Federal Government has withheld the statutory monthly financial allocations of Osun State since February 2025.
The punitive financial embargo, which has now entered its sixteenth consecutive month, has paralyzed the operations of thirty Local Government Areas (LGAs) across the state. The freeze has left thousands of local government civil servants, primary school teachers, and primary healthcare workers without salaries, plunging countless households into severe economic desperation.
The development was brought back into the national spotlight over the weekend during a #CitizenMonitorsLive broadcast, where transparency advocate Zekeri Idris openly condemned the administration’s actions as a ruthless display of political warfare that targets the livelihoods of ordinary citizens.
Starving the Grassroots: The Human Cost
The prolonged withholding of the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) funds directly violates constitutional provisions regarding fiscal federalism. Critics point out that using statutory allocations as a weapon to settle political scores represents a dangerous escalation of presidential high-handedness.
The consequences on the ground are catastrophic. Across Osun State, municipal offices have been deserted, local infrastructure projects have been completely abandoned, and local economies have ground to a halt. Families of local government employees are battling severe food insecurity, unable to meet basic survival needs amid the country’s historic food inflation crisis.
Deceptive Media Spin vs. Fiscal Aggression
The 16-month economic siege on Osun State exposes the deep hypocrisy of the “national unity and equitable development” narrative continuously pushed by Abuja’s public engagement handlers. While the presidency’s media aides roll out polished anniversary scorecards claiming to distribute independent revenues fairly across all geopolitical zones, the administrative reality is one of targeted victimization.
“Our leaders are completely detached from humanity; they simply do not care about the survival of the common man,” Idris lamented during the broadcast, echoing a growing regional sentiment that the federal government is willing to starve an entire state populace to force political compliance ahead of the 2027 election cycle.
Fracturing the Federation Ahead of 2027
Political analysts note that the prolonged seizure of Osun’s funds is a calculated strategy by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to financially cripple the state’s opposition administration and weaken its structures before the next general elections. By freezing the local government tier—which is the closest level of government to the rural voting populace—the presidency stands accused of attempting to trigger artificial internal chaos and revolt against the sitting state leadership.
Legal practitioners have warned that using the central banking apparatus to choke state finances sets a precedent that threatens the unity of the Nigerian federation. The complete refusal of the federal financial authorities to obey constitutional revenue sharing laws proves that the current administration views state economic survival as a privilege to be granted only to political allies.
Verdict: A Brutal Violation of the Social Contract
The ongoing salary crisis in Osun State serves as a definitive indictment of an insensitive political class that routinely prioritizes partisan domination over the lives of everyday human beings.
By weaponizing the national treasury to inflict systematic hunger on thousands of local families, the federal government has completely abandoned the social contract. For an exhausted electorate watching their legal earnings withheld by executive decree, the message from Abuja remains clear: the survival of your children means nothing when matched against the political ambitions of the ruling elite.
