By
Secrets Reporters
By mid-year, Imo State governor, Mr Hope Uzodinma had managed to pay its workers just 8 percent of their annual salaries. But the same official spending records examined by SecretsReporters show that the state had already devoured nearly three-quarters of its annual refreshment and meals budget, and well over half of its security vote. The people who work for the government got almost nothing. The people who eat on the government’s account got almost everything.
It is a contrast that reads like a confession. State-wide personnel spending which accounts for the salaries of every worker in Imo State’s public service reached only 8.0 percent of its N141.49 billion annual budget by June. Six months into the year, 92 naira out of every 100 naira meant for wages sat untouched, unreleased, unpaid. And while that money sat still, another pot of money moved at terrifying speed: the state’s refreshment and meals budget, set at N1.10 billion for the whole of 2026, had already swallowed N802 million in the first half of the year. That is 72.7 percent of the year’s feeding money gone by June. In the first quarter alone, N702 million was burned through 63.6 percent of a full year’s provision consumed in just three months.
The security vote moved with the same urgency. Official spending records put the security vote, including operations, at N1.53 billion for 2026. By mid-year, ₦877.5 million of it had been spent which is 57.5 percent of the annual provision in six months. The pace was hottest at the start: N555.5 million flowed out in the first quarter, followed by another N322 million in the second. No one is shown how this money was spent, because security votes in Nigeria are spent without disclosure. What the records show is only the speed of the burn and the burn is fast.
These are state-wide overhead lines, sitting in the official overhead schedules that Governor Hope Uzodimma’s administration operates. They are not traced to any private pocket. They are traced to the records and the records say that in Imo State in 2026, feeding, hosting and secrecy outran the salaries of the people who keep the state running.
The travel bill tells the same story in a bigger font. Travel and transport (general) was approved at N8.57 billion for the year, one of the largest single overhead lines in the state’s recurrent spending. By June, N2.39 billion of it had been spent, 27.8 percent of the annual provision. Inside that mountain of movement is a line that deserves its own spotlight: international travel for training, given N500 million for the full year, had already consumed N340 million by mid-year which is 68 percent of a twelve-month provision exhausted in six months, most of it in the first quarter. The foreign training trips, it turns out, happened early and fast.
Celebrations got their cut too. Special days and celebrations carried an approved budget of N881.64 million for 2026, and by June N181.5 million of it had been spent. Welfare packages, a broad line that covers staff welfare provisions was approved at N2.03 billion, with N275.93 million spent in the first half.
Uzodinma government that had paid out only 8 percent of its workers’ salaries by June had spent 72.7 percent of its refreshment budget, 57.5 percent of its security vote, 68 percent of its foreign travel-for-training budget, and N181.5 million on celebrations and special days.
