As revenue collapsed in Q1 2026, Oyo State decided who got paid — and who didn’t. The data reveals a hierarchy of survival, and healthcare workers and judges aren’t at the top. KEHINDE ADEGOKE reports.
With revenue in free fall and only 16.2 percent of its first-quarter 2026 target achieved, Oyo State had to make difficult choices. Budget performance data indicate those choices were not spread evenly across government, but arranged in a strict hierarchy that decided who got paid and who waited.
At the bottom of that hierarchy: the people meant to enforce the law and deliver justice.
The Numbers Behind the Crisis
Oyo State has long carried a heavy personnel cost burden. In 2025, the state committed N214.12 billion — 31.3% of its entire N684.15 billion budget — to salaries, pensions and administrative overhead, according to comparative state fiscal analyses by BudgIT. That structure left the state with little room to maneuver the moment revenue underperformed.
And underperform it did. Against a prorated quarterly personnel budget, Oyo State managed to disburse only 21.1% of what was due in Q1 2026 — equivalent to roughly N81 billion of the annual recurrent allocation. On paper, that reads as a uniform funding shortfall. In practice, it was anything but uniform.
Who Got Paid — and Who Didn’t
A closer, agency-by-agency review of the state’s own execution data reveals the real story: the squeeze fell hardest on the institutions meant to hold power accountable and deliver basic public services, while political and executive offices were largely spared.
The judiciary went almost entirely unfunded. The Judicial Service Commission — responsible for paying the state’s judges, magistrates and court staff — received just 0.7% of its N2.12 billion personnel allocation in the first quarter. That’s not a delay; that’s a near-total funding freeze for an arm of government constitutionally meant to be independent of executive discretion.
Law enforcement fared even worse — literally zero. The Oyo State Rule of Law Enforcement Authority recorded a 0% execution rate on its N55 million personnel budget. Not underfunded — unfunded. Every salary due in that agency went unpaid in Q1.
Health educators were squeezed nearly as hard. The institutions training the state’s next generation of nurses and health technicians absorbed some of the deepest cuts: the College of Nursing Sciences received only 7.5% of its N705.7 million personnel budget, and the College of Health Science and Technology, Eleyele, just 8.9% of its N560.4 million allocation.
Meanwhile, the Governor’s office was nearly fully funded. The Office of the Executive Governor recorded a 24.2% execution rate on its N850.9 million personnel budget — close to its full quarterly target, and more than 30 times the execution rate handed to the judiciary on a percentage basis.
Two agencies stood out as the best-funded of all. The Oyo State Anti-Corruption Agency posted a 62.4% execution rate on its N176.8 million allocation, and the State Pensions Board achieved 54% — both dramatically outperforming the judiciary, law enforcement, and health training institutions combined.
A Pattern, Not a Coincidence
Agency Personnel Budget Q1 Execution Rate
Laid side by side, the numbers are difficult to read as anything other than a deliberate order of priorities. The agencies tasked with enforcing the law, delivering justice, and training the state’s health workforce were left at the very bottom of the payment queue — while the executive arm of government, and a small number of select agencies, were funded at multiples of that rate.
This is the uncomfortable core of the story: when Oyo State’s revenue collapsed, the rationing wasn’t random. It followed a hierarchy that placed political and executive continuity ahead of judicial independence and frontline public service delivery — the exact agencies a functioning state most needs to keep running when things get hard.
Why It Matters
A judiciary that goes unpaid for a quarter is a judiciary under quiet pressure — court staff facing real financial hardship, case backlogs at risk of growing, and an arm of government that is constitutionally meant to check the executive instead of becoming dependent on the executive’s fiscal goodwill to function at all.
A law enforcement authority with zero salary disbursement cannot reasonably be expected to operate at full capacity. And health training institutions starved of funding put the state’s future healthcare workforce — and by extension, ordinary Oyo residents — at risk down the line.
The state government has presented its 2026 fiscal program as an ambitious “Budget of Economic Expansion.” But the Q1 execution data tells a more sobering story underneath the headline figures: when the revenue didn’t materialize to match that ambition, the state quietly chose which parts of government would feel the pain — and which parts wouldn’t.
This Investigation is based on Oyo State’s own published budget performance documents for Q1 2026, alongside comparative fiscal analysis from BudgIT. The state government has not yet publicly responded to questions about the disparity in personnel fund disbursement across agencies.
Kehinde Adegoke is an award-winning investigative journalist with more than 15 years of distinguished experience uncovering stories that shape public discourse. With three industry nominations across diverse beats, he has earned recognition for fearless reporting, incisive analysis, and a commitment to accountability. As Managing Editor and CEO of TheDiggerNews.com, Adegoke leads a pioneering newsroom dedicated to exposing hidden truths, amplifying marginalised voices, and setting new standards in investigative journalism.
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