Kano's 2026 budget counted on N909.94bn from FAAC, 2.3 times the N391.19bn its audited 2025 accounts show it received

Kano State's House of Assembly on Monday, 19 October 2026, adopted its appropriation committee's recommendation to cut the state's 2026 budget, according to a News Agency of Nigeria report carried by Nairametrics. The committee chairman, Abdulhamid Abdul-Minjibir, attributed the cut to "lower-than-anticipated FAAC inflows". Two of the state's own documents show how far apart the plan and the inflows were. The budget passed in December 2025 assumed N909,936,035,366.00 from the state's share of the Federation Account in 2026. The state's audited accounts for 2025, published by its Auditor-General in July 2026, show that Kano received N391.19 billion from the same three FAAC sources in the whole of 2025. The 2026 figure is 2.3 times that.

The first document is the state's Budget Implementation Report for the second quarter of 2026, prepared by the Ministry of Planning and Budget with the Ministry of Finance and dated July 2026. On page 3 it says the state's share of FAAC brought in N186,286,492,371.95 from January to June "against the Approved Budget of N 909,936,035,366.00 representing 20.5% achievement". Independent revenue, by contrast, reached N60,138,657,525.65 against a target of N138,436,083,278.00, or 43.4 per cent.

Table 1 on page 7 gives the same two FAAC figures and a balance of N723,649,542,994.05 still to come in the second half. Re-done, N186,286,492,371.95 is 20.47 per cent of N909,936,035,366.00, which the report rounds to 20.5. At the same pace, a full year of FAAC receipts would come to about N372.57 billion, or 40.9 per cent of the budgeted sum. That is an extrapolation by Vero Record, not a figure in the report. The shortfall the committee cited this week was visible in the state's own published report three months earlier.

The second document is the Consolidated Audit Report 2025 of the Office of the Auditor-General for Kano State, posted on audit.kn.gov.ng in July 2026. Its table comparing actual and budgeted inflows for 2025, on report page 19, lists Statutory Allocation of N123.08 billion, VAT of N146.81 billion and Other Receipts (FGN) of N121.30 billion. Those three FAAC lines add up to N391.19 billion. The budget for the same three lines in 2025 was N103.74 billion, N153.97 billion and N362.58 billion, a total of N620.29 billion. Kano therefore received 63.1 per cent of the FAAC money it had planned for in 2025.

The Auditor-General's commentary under the table is plain about where the 2025 gap lay. "Other Receipts (FGN) recorded the widest shortfall, at N121.30 billion against a budget of N362.58 billion," it says, and it closes: "Management should review the assumptions underlying Other Receipts (FGN) and Other Capital Receipts, given the scale of underperformance against budget on those lines."

The audit also shows why the 2024 base may have looked larger than the recurring flow. Its comparison of actual inflows on report page 16 puts Other Receipt (FAAC) at N243.42 billion in 2024 and N121.30 billion in 2025, roughly half. The notes on report pages 22 and 23 list two items in the 2024 figure with nothing recorded against them in 2025: N59,411,221 thousand in signature bonus and N70,214,897 thousand in ECA refund, together about N129.63 billion. The audit does not say whether the 2025 or 2026 budgets assumed such receipts would recur, and Vero Record has not seen the budget's revenue working papers.

The record supports the state on several points. Statutory Allocation was, in the auditor's words, "the only major line to exceed its budget" in 2025, at N123.08 billion against N103.74 billion. VAT reached about 95 per cent of its target. Kano's FAAC money did grow: the three lines came to N381.75 billion in 2024 (N23.93 billion, N114.40 billion and N243.42 billion) and N391.19 billion in 2025, and the first-half 2026 receipts of N186.29 billion equal 47.6 per cent of the 2025 full-year total. The quarterly report also discloses the gap openly, with the percentage achieved printed beside each line.

What the documents do not show is any year in which Kano received a sum close to N909.94 billion from FAAC. The 2026 target is N518.75 billion more than the audited 2025 receipts, and N289.65 billion more than the 2025 FAAC budget, which the audit shows was itself missed by N229.10 billion.

The size of the cut reported on Monday also needs care. The approved 2026 budget is N1,477,829,666,130.71, the figure in Table 1 of the quarterly report. Press reports describe a cut of about N276 billion to N1.21 trillion, but N1,477.83 billion less N1.21 trillion is about N267.83 billion. Vero Record has not obtained the Appropriation Amendment Bill or the committee report, and cannot say which figure is right or how the cut is split.

Nairametrics, working from FAAC distribution data, put Kano's first-half 2026 FAAC receipts at N152.57 billion. The state's own report gives N186.29 billion for the same six months. The two may differ in what they count, for example gross or net of deductions, or FAAC receipts beyond statutory allocation and VAT. The documents read for this report do not reconcile them.

The quarterly report says that revenue codes which exceeded their targets "will be formalized through the process of Budget Adjustment in collaboration with the State House of Assembly". Whether the revised budget's FAAC assumption now sits closer to the N391.19 billion of 2025 is something the amendment, once published, will show.

What this rests on

Kano Q2 2026 Budget Implementation Report, p.3 and Table 1 (p.7): FAAC budget N909,936,035,366.00; H1 actual N186,286,492,371.95; 186,286,492,371.95 / 909,936,035,366.00 = 20.47% (report: 20.5%); 909,936,035,366.00 - 186,286,492,371.95 = 723,649,542,994.05 (matches report balance); 186.29bn x 2 = 372.57bn = 40.9% of 909.94bn (our extrapolation). Kano Consolidated Audit Report 2025, report p.19: 2025 FAAC actual 123.08 + 146.81 + 121.30 = 391.19bn; 2025 FAAC budget 103.74 + 153.97 + 362.58 = 620.29bn; 391.19 / 620.29 = 63.07%; shortfall 620.29 - 391.19 = 229.10bn. Total inflow check: 123.08 + 146.81 + 121.30 + 102.26 + 0.16 + 44.86 + 23.69 + 110.90 = 673.06 (audit total 673.06). 909.94 / 391.19 = 2.326; 909.94 - 391.19 = 518.75bn; 909.94 - 620.29 = 289.65bn. Report p.16: 2024 FAAC lines 23.93 + 114.40 + 243.42 = 381.75bn. Notes pp.22-23: 59,411,221 + 70,214,897 = 129,626,118 thousand = N129.63bn. 186.29 / 391.19 = 47.6%. Press cut: 1,477.83 - 1,210 = 267.83bn, not 276bn.

What this does not establish

The documents do not establish what assumptions produced the N909.94bn FAAC estimate, whether one-off 2024 receipts were assumed to recur, the exact size of the cut adopted on 19 October 2026 or how it is split (the Appropriation Amendment Bill and committee report were not obtained), which projects will be cut, or why the state's first-half FAAC figure (N186.29bn) differs from the N152.57bn derived by Nairametrics from FAAC data. The doubled first-half figure is an extrapolation, not a state forecast. Nothing in either document indicates wrongdoing; the audit's comment concerns budget assumptions. Kano State Government was not contacted before publication.