Exclusive: Access Bank’s Managing Director Lent Oyo State N26 Billion Under Governor Seyi Makinde Without Ever Demanding the Compliance Certificate the Law Required Him to Ask For

Secrets Reporters

Governor Seyi Makinde’s administration borrowed N26 billion from Access Bank Plc in December 2023 for roads and school infrastructure, and while exclusive documents in our possession found some of the projects incomplete more than a year later, the deeper problem is procedural: Oyo State has never obtained a Fiscal Responsibility Commission compliance certificate for the loan, has never presented a cost-benefit analysis for it, and unlike most states in Nigeria, has still not domesticated the Fiscal Responsibility Act at all.

Access Bank Plc, under Managing Director Roosevelt Ogbonna, advanced Oyo State a facility that funded, among other things, the Senator Rasheed Adewolu Ladoja Circular Road connecting Lagos/Ibadan to Jagun, a mega project awarded to Craneburg Construction Company, a company owned by the late Hebert Wigwe family at an initial contract value of N50 billion, later revised to N56.89 billion, for an 18-month completion window. When the FRC’s team visited the 15.5km road in October 2024, less than a year after the December 2023 loan award, construction stood at just 31.64 percent complete.

The state also used loan proceeds toward the rehabilitation of the 48km Eruwa road at the Akufo/Ido junction, contracted to H.F.P Engineering Limited at N6.5 billion. The contractor claimed 54.35 percent completion, but FRC’s own site assessment put the real figure closer to 30 percent — a discrepancy the contractor could not contradict when confronted by the verification team. A separate N2 billion facility financing 30 percent of that same road was described as a contractor’s finance facility tied to the state’s Internally Generated Revenue, and reported as already liquidated.

Completed schools, unfinished roads, and a state that has never adopted the law it is being judged against

On the positive side, FRC investigators confirmed that 2020/2021 FGN-UBEC/SUBEB counterpart-funded school infrastructure projects; new classrooms, toilets and furniture for public primary and junior secondary schools across Oyo State, jointly financed by a N1.51 billion Federal Government contribution and a matching N1.51 billion facility the state obtained from First City Monument Bank were 100 percent complete and in active use.

But on compliance, the FRC’s findings track the same pattern found it nonexistent. “No evidence of cost-benefit analysis was found, as required by section 44(1) of the FRA 2007, to assess project viability before loan acquisition,” investigators wrote of the Access Bank facility. There was also no indication that the Makinde administration sought or obtained the compliance verification Section 45 of the Act requires before the loan was taken, and perhaps most tellingly of all the six states under reviewed by SecretsReporters, Oyo State has not domesticated the Fiscal Responsibility Law or established a state-level Fiscal Responsibility Commission at all, leaving it without even the local regulatory architecture other states in this review at least nominally possess.

Access Bank had its own obligation under the law and the record shows it did not meet it either

The Fiscal Responsibility Act does not place the compliance burden on state governments alone. The Act’s own borrowing framework, set out in Parts IX and X, imposes a matching duty on the lender: a bank is required to request proof of an FRC compliance certificate from any government body before extending it a loan, and lending without that proof is itself treated as a violation of the Act. Because Oyo State never obtained a Proof of Compliance certificate for the N26 billion facility, a fact the FRC’s own findings confirm Access Bank could not have sighted one before disbursing the loan.

That makes the bank’s failure to demand the certificate, under Managing Director Roosevelt Ogbonna, a breach that sits alongside the state’s own, not a separate footnote to it. A commercial bank moving N26 billions of public debt onto a state’s books carries the same statutory duty to check the paperwork as the government asking for the money.

The specific provisions of the FRA 2007 the record shows were broken

Two sections of the Fiscal Responsibility Act anchor this case, and the FRC’s verification findings tie both directly to the Access Bank facility:

Section 44(1) — no cost-benefit analysis: Any government seeking to borrow must first specify the loan’s purpose and present a cost-benefit analysis setting out the economic and social benefits of the intended project. Oyo State produced none for the N26 billion loan, and nothing in the FRC’s findings suggests Access Bank asked to see one before lending.

Section 45 — no Proof of Compliance, on either side of the transaction: A government must obtain an FRC compliance certificate before borrowing, and the same section binds the lending institution to request that certificate before disbursing funds, treating a bank’s failure to do so as a violation in its own right. Oyo State did not obtain the certificate; Access Bank did not insist on one before advancing N26 billion.

Beyond these two, the Commission’s report separately notes that Oyo State has not domesticated its own Fiscal Responsibility Law or set up a state-level Fiscal Responsibility Commission — a governance gap rather than a breach of the federal Act itself, but one that leaves the state, and any bank lending to it, with no local compliance body to check against even if either party wanted to.

Oyo State’s own debt-to-revenue ratio checked out under Debt Management Office guidelines but neither the state nor Access Bank can show a cost-benefit analysis or a compliance certificate for the N26 billion that changed hands.

The FRC has recommended that Oyo State’s Ministry of Finance prepare cost-benefit analyses ahead of any future borrowing, obtain compliance certification from the Commission in Abuja as Section 45(2) of the Act requires, tighten internal controls around payment vouchers, and as a foundational step the state has avoided since the FRA came into force in 2007 – finally enact its own Fiscal Responsibility Law. Any bank considering Oyo State’s next loan request, including Access Bank under Roosevelt Ogbonna, carries the same statutory obligation to ask for that compliance certificate the next time, an obligation the record shows was not met this time.