Anambra tops 2025 states’ fiscal performance ranking, overtakes Lagos
Anambra State has emerged as Nigeria’s top-performing state in fiscal management for 2025, moving up from second place in the previous report and displacing Lagos State, which retained the second position for the second consecutive year.
The 2025 “State of States” report released by BudgIT in Abuja on Tuesday ranked Anambra, Lagos, Kwara, Abia, and Edo as the top five states with the highest fiscal performance.
Edo State made its debut in the top five, after staying within the top 10 range over the past four reporting periods. Abia State also posted a remarkable improvement, entering the top five for the first time to rank fourth overall.
At the bottom of the ranking were Kogi, Jigawa, Benue, and Yobe states, while Cross River recorded the sharpest decline, dropping from 5th place in 2024 to 30th in 2025.
The ranking is based on an index that evaluates states’ ability to meet operating expenses from internally generated revenue (IGR), debt sustainability, and the ratio of capital to recurrent expenditure.
According to the report, Enugu and Lagos were the only two states with IGR sufficient to cover their operating expenses, recording IGR-to-operating-expense ratios of 146.68 percent and 120.87 percent, respectively.
Unlike the 2024 report where six states generated enough IGR to cover at least 50 percent of their operating expenses, only five states, Abia, Anambra, Kwara, Ogun, and Edo, achieved that benchmark in 2025. This indicates that 28 states relied heavily on federal transfers and other inflows to fund their budgets.
“For perspective, in the 2024 edition, only six states required more than five times their IGR to cover their operating expenses. In the 2025 edition, that number more than doubled to 14 states,” the report stated.
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It added that although several states struggled with IGR growth during the 2024 fiscal year, all 36 states were able to fund their total recurrent expenditures through a combination of IGR, federal allocations, aids, and grants.
“No state needed to borrow to cover its total operating expenses,” BudgIT noted.
The report also highlighted a shift in capital expenditure priorities. Unlike the 2024 period when only Rivers State spent more than 70 percent of its total expenditure on capital projects, the 2025 assessment shows Abia State leading the country in capital allocation, dedicating 77.05 percent of its total spending to capital items.
In addition to Abia, Anambra, Enugu, Ebonyi, and Taraba also allocated more than 70 percent of their total spending to capital expenditure. Overall, 24 states spent at least half of their budgets on capital projects, while Bauchi, Ekiti, Delta, Benue, Oyo, and Ogun devoted more than 60 percent of their total expenditure to personnel and overhead costs.
