Oga, sit down. Let's talk about the Lagos State budget, not as a spreadsheet, but as a confession of national character. Every year, they give us a budget. Every year, it reads like a menu designed for gods who live in Lekki while reigning over Badagry.
They just signed off on the 2026 budget, and while the rest of Lagos is celebrating the idea of ₦4.4 trillion for the 'Greater Lagos' project, the devil is busy having a jollof rice feast in the line items. This is where the magic happens, where naira notes multiply faster than traffic on the 3rd Mainland Bridge.
Take the Lagos State House of Assembly (HOA), our supposed representatives. In the three years leading up to 2026, the car budget alone hit an estimated ₦65 billion. For 2026, the provision for official vehicles implies a cost of ₦516 million per lawmaker. This is not a car; this is a mobile, air-conditioned, bullet-proof shrine to impunity. The rest of us are managing our Keke Napep loans, but our 'Honourables' require a personal motorcade worthy of a small European nation.
Then there’s the furniture. The allocation for office tables and chairs suggests a unit price of ₦10.6 million for a single set. That table must be made of vibranium and the chair must come with a personal masseuse. And because NEPA is a shared tragedy, the budget for 40 generators, one per member comes in at roughly ₦90.7 million each. They are effectively installing personal power stations while primary healthcare centres in Alimosho are running on expired candles.
The height of this fiscal comedy is the audacity to look beyond Lagos. Why build an affordable housing scheme for civil servants when you can budget for ₦68 billion to acquire residential properties in Abuja for the Lagos lawmakers? That works out to a cool ₦1.7 billion per legislator for a secondary residence in the Federal Capital Territory. The message is clear: our loyalty lies not with our constituents, but with the national political cabal that guarantees our perpetual recycling. And let us not forget the eternal, opaque tax harvesting machine, Alpha Beta, which reportedly walks away with N186 billion of the state's revenue. That's the Lagos Premium Tax, a massive cut for simply processing the money the rest of us sweat to pay.
It is the sheer, bare-faced inflation that truly insults. ₦217 million for a Hiace bus that costs million? That ₦127 million difference is the ‘₦90 emolument’ of corruption, the price of our collective silence.
We scream on Twitter and write long epistles. But what does it change? Nothing. The system is designed for zero consequences. The truth is, it makes zero difference to these politicians whether the funds are used for public welfare or simply embezzled because the outcome is the same.
They know, with a cynical certainty that breaks the soul, that the good people in Mushin, Badagry, and Alimosho will line up again to vote them back in. They will be paid a miserable ₦5,000 for their vote, effectively selling a ₦1.7 billion house in Abuja, a ₦516 million SUV, and a ₦90 million generator back to the politician who stole it from them in the first place.
A society, they say, ultimately gets the government it tolerates. And Lagos, my dear Eko, has learned to tolerate the unbearable. When will the cost of the generator in their house finally be less than the cost of dignity in yours?