Oyo's Appropriation Law states two different capital figures in one sentence, under a certificate that it was compared word for word

The Oyo State Appropriation Law 2026, number 10, was assented on 22 December 2025. Its long title, on page 1, appropriates a total of N892,085,074,480.79, of which N387,138,596,667.94 is recurrent and N504,946,477,812.85 is capital, each stated in words and then in figures.

Section 3 is the operative provision for capital spending. Its marginal note reads Appropriation of N504,946,477,812.85 Capital Expenditure 2nd Schedule.

The section itself then reads: The sum of Five Hundred and Four Billion, Nine Hundred and Forty-Six Million, Four Hundred and Seventy-Seven Thousand, Eight Hundred and Twelve Naira, Eighty-Five Kobo (N504,945,477,812.85) only shall be appropriated from the Consolidated Revenue Fund.

The words say nine hundred and forty-six million. The figures in the same parenthesis say 945,477,812.85. One of them is wrong by exactly one million naira, inside a single sentence of an enacted law.

Directly below, on the same page, is the certificate: This printed impression has been carefully compared by me with the Law which has been passed by the Oyo State House of Assembly and found by me to be a true and correct printed copy of the Law. It is signed by the Clerk of the State House of Assembly and by the Speaker.

The intended sum is not in doubt. The long title and the marginal note both carry the higher figure, and the written words in section 3 agree with them. On the ordinary rule that words prevail over figures, the appropriation is N504,946,477,812.85. Nothing practical turns on the discrepancy.

What it shows is a process point rather than a money point. The certificate is not a formality; it is the mechanism by which a legislature warrants that the printed law matches what it voted. Here it was given over a page on which the operative section states two different sums.

One million naira against a N892bn budget is nothing. The question the document raises is what else a word-for-word comparison would have been expected to catch.

What this rests on

The law was opened and read by Vero. The relevant pages are scans and were rendered and read directly.

What this does not establish

It does not establish any fiscal irregularity. The intended sum is discernible from the long title, the marginal note and the words of the section itself, and on the ordinary rule of construction the words govern. It does not establish that anyone was misled or that any money moved on the lower figure.