Money Miss Road: Delta State Governor, Oborevwori, To Spend N3.6 Billion For Privatet Jet Charter And Disguises It As ‘Air Warrant

Onoja Baba

A seemingly suspicious line item in the 2026 budget of Delta State has given rise to questions about fiscal transparency and potential misuse of public funds in the heart of Nigeria’s oil-rich Niger Delta state, where federal allocations and petroleum royalties fuel ambitious development agendas.
Placed within the overhead costs for the Government House and Protocol section, an allocation of N3.6 billion for “air warrants (local)” stands out, unchanged from the previous year’s approval, prompting scrutiny over whether this provision serves as a veiled mechanism for chartering private jets for state officials’ domestic travels.
The 2026 budget, initially presented by Governor Sheriff Oborevwori to the Delta State House of Assembly in November 2025 as N1.664 trillion, underwent adjustments before being signed into law in December 2025 at N1.729 trillion. This marked a substantial 70 percent increase over the 2025 appropriation, with recurrent expenditure set at N500 billion and capital projects dominating at N1.229 trillion, emphasizing infrastructure under the administration’s MORE Agenda for meaningful development, opportunities, reforms, and enhanced peace and security.
Amid this expansive fiscal plan, funded largely by anticipated oil revenues, federal transfers, and internally generated income, the Government House and Protocol overhead ballooned to N32.997 billion from N21.744 billion in 2025, representing a significant uptick in administrative spending.
At the core of this investigation lies the N3.6 billion earmarked for local air warrants, a term that, in the broader context of Nigerian government financial practices, typically refers to authorizations issued by finance authorities to release funds for approved expenditures. These warrants act as safeguards, ensuring disbursements align with budgeted items and available cash, often categorized into recurrent or capital types to prevent unauthorized commitments.
However, in Delta State’s budget documentation, the phrasing “air warrants (local)” appears tailored to aviation-related costs, raising suspicions that it masks expenditures for private jet hires rather than standard commercial flights or other transparent travel arrangements. Sources familiar with state procurement processes indicate that such allocations can provide flexibility for high-level officials to bypass public scrutiny, opting for chartered aircraft under the guise of official warrants for “local” air travel needs.
This suspicion gains traction when viewed against the backdrop of the administration’s broader spending patterns. The state, Nigeria’s third-largest oil producer, inherited a debt burden of N465.4 billion from prior governors, primarily tied to infrastructure loans, yet has maintained a zero-borrowing stance since Oborevwori’s inauguration, relying instead on revenue streams to fuel initiatives. While infrastructure receives a hefty N450 billion for statewide roads, and each of the 25 local governments is slated for N7 billion to address roads, health, and education needs, the persistence of the N3.6 billion air warrants figure, identical to 2025, suggests an entrenched practice potentially prioritizing elite mobility over grassroots priorities. Social interventions, allocated N20 billion, pale in comparison, highlighting a possible imbalance where administrative luxuries consume resources amid high deficit-to-revenue ratios noted by civil society groups like BudgIT, which peg such patterns at around 70 percent in similar state budgets.
Further fuelling concerns are recent high-profile procurements that underscore the administration’s approach to transport-related outlays. In January 2026, the government acquired 65 brand-new SUVs, including Prado Land Cruisers, at a cost of N10.4 billion, distributed to traditional rulers to bolster their community governance roles, with similar gestures extended to state lawmakers and national assembly members. These moves, while framed as enhancements to local leadership, reflect a pattern of substantial investments in mobility for influential figures, potentially extending to aerial options through the air warrants provision.
Opposition voices, particularly from the Peoples Democratic Part, have already accused the governor of inflating project costs, such as flyovers in Warri and Effurun, by up to N50 billion, while the administration counters by highlighting abolished arbitrary contract variations and a commitment to fiscal discipline. Yet, the opacity surrounding the air warrants allocation invites deeper probing: What specific flights or charters does this cover?
Are competitive bidding processes followed for private jet services, or do favored providers benefit from discretionary warrants? In Nigerian fiscal regulations, warrants are meant to ensure evidence of available funds before commitments, but when applied to “air” specifics, they could enable off-the-books arrangements for rapid, luxurious local transports, perhaps between Asaba and other Delta locales or to Abuja for federal engagements, without the accountability of public airline records.
This investigation draws from official budget documents, revealing the air warrants as part of a suite of overhead increases, including security jumping to N18 billion from N10.649 billion, government publicity and press relations rising to N2.5 billion from N1.2 billion, and entertainment and hospitality climbing to N1.4 billion from N950 million. Such escalations, while justified by the state as necessary for governance, contrast with trailing internally generated revenue behind oil windfalls, prompting questions about sustainable spending. Social media reactions to the budget have been mixed, with some praising the MORE Agenda’s focus on development, but others calling for audits of administrative costs.
Attempts to seek clarification from the Delta State Government on the precise use of the N3.6 billion air warrants, including any ties to private jet chartering, yielded no response by publication time.