By Hezekiah Akinrinde
There are tragedies that announce themselves with fire and thunder, and there are tragedies that arrive quietly, dressed in paperwork, stapled to press statements, and sealed with official stamps.
On January 16, 2024, Bodija, Ibadan, taught us what a single moment can do to a neighbourhood. Walls that had held decades of laughter became rubble. Lives that woke up ordinary became headlines. In the days that followed, what mattered was not politics. It was response. Speed. Compassion. Competence. That sacred urgency that should visit any government when its citizens bleed.
So, when the conversation resurfaced recently around the Federal Government’s disaster intervention funds for Oyo State, it was always going to be more than a partisan quarrel. It touched something deeper: the moral mathematics of public finance. When suffering is on one side of the scale, what exactly do we place on the other?
Let me state my bias upfront, so nobody wastes energy “exposing” it later. I make no secret of my deep love for Governor Seyi Makinde, and I doubt anything will change how I feel about him. On many fronts, he has been the most impactful governor Oyo State has had since 1999. If anyone insists that Senator Rashidi Ladoja would have competed fiercely in that league but for the political sabotage of the Adedibu-Obasanjo era, I will not quarrel. That argument has legs.
But admiration must not become idolatry. We worship God alone, not mortals. And in public life, the most dangerous fan is the one who cannot ask questions when applause is no longer enough.
This is why the official response from the Oyo State Government, meant to settle the dust, has instead raised more dust. I read it once with the heart of a supporter. I read it again with the suspicion of a citizen. Then I read it with the eyes of a banker who has spent enough years around public sector funds to know that money is never just money. It is policy. It is power. It is temptation. It is also, sometimes, a weapon of delay.
Now, I am not here to defend the credibility of those who sparked the controversy. Nigeria has never lacked loud messengers. Some of them speak because they love truth. Many speak because they love attention. A few speak because they love negotiation. You can decide where any politician sits on that spectrum.
I’m even less concerned by the fact that it was former Governor Ayodele Fayose whose profile as a politician with persistently itchy hands while in office and a leaky throat out of office that made the revelation.
Anyone who knows Fayose well can easily admit he is one of those public characters with the thinnest coat of honor and integrity you can find around. The only reasonable reason he is not in jail is because he has perfected the art and science of ”kiss the right as* and rub the right rumps”.
My interest is not the messenger. My interest is the message and the official explanation that followed.
We are told that a total of N50bn was approved, but only N30bn was released, and that N30bn has remained untouched in a dedicated account for over a year. We are also told the state spent roughly N24.6bn of its own resources responding to the disaster, including direct support to victims and major infrastructure reconstruction. Fine. Those are serious claims, and they deserve serious civic interrogation.
Here are the questions that refuse to leave my table.
1) What does “untouched” mean in a country where money can move without moving?
If the N30bn truly remained “untouched” from the day it hit the account, then it implies no withdrawals, no transfers, no utilisation. That is a strong claim. In a sane environment, the next step would be simple: publish a full bank statement spanning the entire period, not a convenient snapshot. Nigerians have learnt, the hard way, that screenshots are not transparency. They are often theatre.
If government is confident enough to invite “verification,” then let verification be complete. A continuous statement, a clear audit trail, and a reconciliation signed off by independent auditors. That is how you end rumours in a democracy, not with confident adjectives.
2) Why would disaster relief sit idle while victims live with the disaster daily?
The argument offered is essentially this: the state refrained from utilising the N30bn because the remaining N20bn was withheld by federal agencies, and the state chose to “wait and see.”
I understand “wait and see” in politics. Nigeria runs on it. Many alliances are built on it. Many betrayals are also built on it.
But “wait and see” is a strange philosophy in disaster management. Disasters do not pause to complete tranches. Victims do not suspend hunger until paperwork is balanced. And reconstruction does not become morally cleaner because it waited for a round number.
If the state truly spent N24.6bn from its own purse, then we must ask the most practical question: why not deploy the N30bn to deepen the intervention, reimburse the state treasury, scale compensation, strengthen emergency response capacity, or accelerate rebuilding? Even if you insist on strict earmarking, the tragedy itself is the earmark. The purpose is relief and recovery. Not account-keeping.
The phrase “the more the merrier” may sound unserious, but in humanitarian response it is often the truest policy statement. More money, deployed transparently, can mean more roofs rebuilt, more medical bills paid, more trauma counselling funded, more small businesses restarted, more dignity restored.
3) Was this an economic decision, or a political one?
Let us be honest: keeping N30bn “safe” for over a year can be framed as prudence, but it can also be framed as strategy.
If it was an economic decision, the state should explain the logic clearly. Because in an inflation-battered economy like ours, idle money is not neutral. It loses value. Each month of delay can quietly reduce what that money could have achieved in bricks, cement, labour, medical support, and direct compensation. You do not keep relief funds “safe” by freezing them while prices climb and suffering remains fresh.
If it was a political decision, then the state should also be bold enough to admit the real fear: mistrust of federal follow-through, suspicion of political games, uncertainty about conditions attached to the funds, or anxiety about being later accused of spending “incomplete” intervention money.
All these may be human and even realistic, but they should be stated plainly. Governance is not a poetry slam. It is explanation under oath, even when no court is involved.
4) Was there any humanitarian lens at the centre of this “wait and see”?
This is the hardest question.
The most painful thing about disasters is not just the explosion, the flood, the fire, or the collapse. It is what happens after, when response becomes slow, and people begin to feel abandoned. When citizens start to suspect that their suffering is being managed, not healed.
So, beyond the figures and press releases, what did “wait and see” mean for the affected families? What did it mean for landlords who lost property, tenants who lost homes, traders whose shops became dust, children who now sleep with fear? Was there a conscious decision that the already-spent N24.6bn was “enough,” pending federal balance? If so, by what humanitarian measure?
Because any policy that can justify leaving relief funds unused for over a year needs to show a moral framework, not just an administrative one.
5) The banker’s question: what happened to the interest?
Now let me put on my old banking suit for a moment, because money in an account is rarely quiet. It either earns interest, or it creates incentives, or both.
We are told the funds were received on November 4, 2024, and remained untouched as of December 31, 2025. That is roughly 14 months, about 423 days if you count inclusively.
If that account is interest-bearing, then where is the interest trail?
If it is a current account with negotiated returns, where are the monthly credits, or the sweep arrangement details? If there is an instruction to accrue interest into a separate account, can the state publish the receiving account’s statement and the interest computation basis?
And if, by some strange design, it is non-interest-bearing, then why would any government keep N30bn parked like that in a commercial bank for over a year? Public sector funds do not typically behave that way, not when finance commissioners and bank relationship managers negotiate yields like a last-minute World Cup qualifier.
Let us even do a simple, transparent, devil’s-advocate illustration, with assumptions clearly stated: if the effective interest-earning balance was N15bn (assuming a 50 percent CRR sterilisation effect on bank deployable funds), and the negotiated rate was 3.5 percent per annum, then over about 423 days, gross interest could be in the region of N608m.
Again, that is illustrative. Rates vary. Account structures differ. Regulatory treatments can be complicated. But that is precisely why the state should provide clarity. In a matter like this, ambiguity is an enemy. It feeds rumours, and rumours do not need facts to spread. They only need silence.
6) The accountability question: why were citizens not carried along earlier?
If it is true that Oyo requested N50bn, received N30bn, and left it unused pending the N20bn balance, did the state inform citizens at any point?
Disaster funds are not private endowments. They are not “executive discretion money.” They are public intervention resources tied to public pain. Communication should be proactive, not reactive. Citizens should not have to hear about relief funds through political boxing matches and media drama.
Even if the state believed it was safer to keep quiet, the question remains: safer for whom? For victims, or for politics?
7) The big picture: relief funds are not trophies
This is where the matter becomes symbolic.
When a government says, “We did not touch the money,” it expects applause for restraint. In Nigeria, where diversion has become almost normal, restraint can look like sainthood.
But there is another side: relief funds are meant to move. They are meant to heal. They are meant to answer suffering with speed. Keeping them untouched can also be read as the bureaucratisation of compassion, the conversion of relief into a waiting-room policy.
And now we return to the title of this piece: a story of talents.
In Matthew 25, the servant with one talent did not steal it. He did not spend it on women, wine, or weekend politics. He simply buried it. He returned it “untouched.” And that was the offence. The master did not praise him for being careful. He condemned him for being useless.
Nigeria has too many buried talents. Buried budgets. Buried projects. Buried promises. Sometimes, buried people.
Governor Makinde has built a reputation many of us defend proudly. That is why this moment matters. Not because opponents are shouting, but because supporters must not become blind.
If the Oyo State Government truly handled this matter with integrity, then transparency will only strengthen its case. Publish the full statements. Publish the audit trail. Publish the procurement breakdown of the N24.6bn spent. Publish the victim support register, anonymised where necessary but verifiable. Publish the interest arrangement, if any. Then challenge Nigerians to examine it and judge fairly.
But if the best defence remains, “Trust us,” then I fear we are walking into the oldest Nigerian trap: turning governance into faith, and turning citizens into congregants.
The last thing Oyo needs is for a genuine record of performance to be stained by avoidable opacity. The last thing victims need is for relief to become a political ornament. And the last thing Nigeria needs is another example of public money that stayed “safe” while public pain stayed loud.
So, over to those who can answer these questions, with documents, not emotions.
Because in the end, the issue is not whether a talent was received.
The issue is whether, while citizens groaned, that talent was buried.
©️Hezekiah Akinrinde is a proud Oyo State citizen and lover of Seyi Makinde.
