Senator Ashiru said the budget shows how road money reaches Kwara South. The 2026 Act lists 41 road lines worth N13.22bn, all under federal agencies

Senator Lola Ashiru, the Deputy Senate Leader, who represents Kwara South, said on Saturday 11 October that he had not received N10 billion for road construction, and that the appropriation acts were public and could be used to check which projects were approved and for how much. We checked the one for this year. The 2026 Appropriation Act contains 41 capital lines that name a road, bridge, culvert, drainage or erosion-control job in a community in the seven local government areas of Kwara South. Together they come to N13,224,977,702. Every one of them sits in the capital budget of a federal ministry, department or agency, and none of them names a senator or any other legislator.

Senator Ashiru spoke at the commissioning of a 48-shop market in Oro, Irepodun Local Government Area, according to reports by QED, Naija News, Nigerian Eye and others. "If indeed N10bn had been paid into my personal account, as alleged, would the relevant government agencies, including the ICPC and EFCC, not have questions to ask?" he said. He said government projects are funded through the budget and executed, supervised and monitored by the relevant ministries, departments and agencies, and he listed roads, bridges, health centres and solar installations he said he had facilitated. None of the reports we read says who made the N10 billion allegation, when it was made or which roads it concerned, and we could not trace it to a named person or a dated statement. QED noted that the senator did not provide a breakdown of the figure. This report therefore tests his description of how the money moves, not the allegation itself.

The test was a reading of the Act's capital schedules, line by line. A line was counted if its description names a road, bridge, culvert, drainage or erosion-control work and places it in Ekiti, Ifelodun, Irepodun, Isin, Offa, Oke Ero or Oyun local government areas, in a town inside them, or in "Kwara South". Lines for streetlights, boreholes and market stalls were left out, even where the description mentions a road, as were lines in Ilorin, which is in Kwara Central, and lines for places of the same name in Ekiti, Osun and Lagos States, which have their own Irepodun, Ifelodun and Ikotun. Two federal trunk-road lines that run through the district are counted separately below.

The 41 lines are spread across eight budget heads. The Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security headquarters carries 17 of them, worth N6,366,903,681. The Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment headquarters carries seven, worth N3,002,473,390, and the Michael Imodu Institute of Labour Studies one, worth N35,000,000. The Federal Ministry of Works carries eight, worth N2,267,949,973. State House headquarters carries three, worth N600,000,000; the Federal Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation one, worth N600,000,000, for Ayo Okpadokun Crescent in the GRA, Offa; the Federal Ministry of Water Resources and Sanitation three, worth N159,600,000; and the National Automotive Design and Development Council one, worth N193,050,658, for 2.1 kilometres of rural feeder roads. Each line carries its own code and amount: on page 492, for example, the Agriculture ministry is given N350,000,000 for Aliu Katsina Road in Oke-Ode, N350,000,000 for a community road in Ojomu and N280,000,000 for a rural road from Alape to Itafa in the Essa district.

On the point the senator made, the document supports him. The Act appropriates each of these sums to a named agency under that agency's ten-digit code, such as 0215001001 for the Agriculture ministry, 0227001001 for Labour and 0234001001 for Works, and it is the agency, not a legislator, that the Act authorises to spend the money. Nothing in the Act provides for money to be paid to a legislator, and no line in it would show a payment to anyone's personal account. The Act also shows that most of the district's road money does not sit with the Works ministry: the Works lines are 17.15 per cent of the N13,224,977,702, while the Agriculture lines are 48.14 per cent and the Labour ministry's headquarters lines 22.70 per cent. The Act does not say why road works were placed under those ministries.

Set against the N10 billion in the allegation, the 41 lines come to N3,224,977,702 more, or 32.25 per cent more. The comparison says nothing about whether the allegation is true. The total is the sum of appropriations to eight separate budget heads, it is not money paid to any person, and some lines name House of Representatives constituencies rather than the senatorial district: two name the Ekiti/Irepodun/Isin/Oke-Ero Federal Constituency (N280,000,000 and N35,000,000) and one an "Irepodun/Ifelodun constituency" (N70,000,000). The district has several members of the National Assembly, and the Act does not attribute any line to any of them.

The district's budget is larger than its road lines. The words "Kwara South" appear in the descriptions of 73 capital lines in the Act, for roads, market stalls, boreholes, streetlights, skills centres and stakeholder meetings, which together come to N20,753,050,658. The Works ministry also carries N24,200,000,000 for the rehabilitation of the Ilorin-Omuaran-Egbe-Kabba-Obajana road, Sections I and II, in Kwara and Kogi States (code ERGP12231239, page 1508), and N800,000,000 for repairs between chainage 40+050 and 51+120 on the Ilorin-Omuaran-Egbe road (ERGP20277034, page 1569). That federal trunk road passes through Omu-Aran but starts in Ilorin and ends in Kogi State, so neither line is counted in the 41.

Two roads appear under more than one agency. Aliu Katsina Road in Oke-Ode, Ifelodun, has N350,000,000 under the Agriculture ministry (ERGP30238191, page 492) and, spelt "Aliyu Katsina Road", N1,050,000,000 under the Works ministry for "laying of 3km interlock road" (ERGP12247800, page 1522), N1,400,000,000 in all. In Oyun, the Labour ministry has N469,708,870 for an "internal access road, Na Royal Drive and Township Hall Road, Ilemona" (ERGP20273957, page 994), and the Works ministry has N368,050,488 for "emergency construction of Na Royal Drive and Ologede Sharp Corner Road and Township Hall Road 4.8klm" in Oyun (ERGP12234659, page 1534), N837,759,358 together. A third line under Labour, N369,464,343 for an "internal access road and new palace road Naroyal" in Oyun (ERGP20273952, page 993), names the same place. The Act does not say whether these are separate sections or phases of the same roads, or whether they overlap.

The senator's own list matches the 2026 Act only in part. The roads he described as built or under way, among them the Owode Market-Onireke-Adeleke Road, the Omolere-Ikolaba-Lanlu-Ajia-Popo Road, Tijani Akande Road in Ijagbo, a 2.6-kilometre section of the Ikotun-Offa road and the Ojude Okeki-Rabah-Afin-Illaro Road in Omu-Aran, do not appear by those names anywhere in it. The works he described as proposed do: page 861 carries N650,000,000 for community roads in the Ipee and Ijagbo areas (ERGP20273557) and N450,000,000 for a link bridge at the Kara cattle market in Irepodun, the reconstruction of a culvert and bridge at Epe-Opin and a culvert at Aworo, Oke Daba (ERGP20273558), both under the Agriculture ministry. Earlier projects would sit in the 2024 or 2025 Acts, which we did not test: the copy of the 2024 Act we hold is a scan without a text layer, and we did not obtain the 2025 Act.

All 41 lines are marked "ongoing" in the Act's status column. An appropriation is permission to spend, not a payment. The Act does not record whether any of the N13,224,977,702 has been released to the agencies, whether contracts have been awarded and to whom, or whether any road has been built.

What the documents do not establish matters as much as what they show. The Act cannot show who proposed any line, whether Senator Ashiru or any other legislator asked for it, or how lines changed between the executive's proposal and the Act signed in April. It cannot confirm or rule out the allegation, whose source we could not identify. Nothing in the documents suggests wrongdoing by the senator or by anyone else, and none is alleged here. Senator Ashiru's office was not asked for comment before publication; the figures above are the Act's own.

What this rests on

The 2026 Appropriation Act (2,604 pages; copy published by PLAC, on disk as 2026-Appropriation-Act.pdf with a text extract), read for this report on 11 October 2026; every cited line was checked against the PDF page, whose printed page number matches the PDF page. Selection: capital lines whose description names a road, bridge, culvert, drainage or erosion-control work in Ekiti, Ifelodun, Irepodun, Isin, Offa, Oke Ero or Oyun LGAs, a town in them, or 'Kwara South'; streetlight, borehole and market lines, Ilorin lines and same-name places in other states excluded; the full list of 41 lines with codes, pages, agencies and amounts is in kwara-south-road-lines-2026.csv. Sums by agency: Agriculture HQ 17 lines, 402,903,681 + 154,000,000 + 350,000,000 + 350,000,000 + 280,000,000 + 245,000,000 + 245,000,000 + 315,000,000 + 140,000,000 + 280,000,000 + 455,000,000 + 650,000,000 + 350,000,000 + 650,000,000 + 450,000,000 + 525,000,000 + 525,000,000 = N6,366,903,681; Labour HQ 7 lines, 369,464,343 + 469,440,737 + 468,859,440 + 469,708,870 + 350,000,000 + 350,000,000 + 525,000,000 = N3,002,473,390; Michael Imodu Institute N35,000,000; Works 8 lines, 70,000,000 + 70,000,000 + 70,000,000 + 70,000,000 + 1,050,000,000 + 368,050,488 + 538,119,485 + 31,780,000 = N2,267,949,973; State House HQ 280,000,000 + 70,000,000 + 250,000,000 = N600,000,000; Science, Technology and Innovation N600,000,000; Water Resources 16,100,000 + 56,000,000 + 87,500,000 = N159,600,000; NADDC N193,050,658. Total 6,366,903,681 + 3,002,473,390 + 35,000,000 + 2,267,949,973 + 600,000,000 + 600,000,000 + 159,600,000 + 193,050,658 = N13,224,977,702 (17 + 7 + 1 + 8 + 3 + 1 + 3 + 1 = 41 lines). Against N10bn: 13,224,977,702 - 10,000,000,000 = 3,224,977,702, which is 32.25 per cent. Shares: Works 2,267,949,973 / 13,224,977,702 = 17.15 per cent; Agriculture 6,366,903,681 / 13,224,977,702 = 48.14 per cent; Labour HQ 3,002,473,390 / 13,224,977,702 = 22.70 per cent. Duplicated roads: Aliu/Aliyu Katsina Road 350,000,000 + 1,050,000,000 = N1,400,000,000; Na Royal Drive and Township Hall Road 469,708,870 + 368,050,488 = N837,759,358. Lines containing 'Kwara South' in the description: 73 lines, N20,753,050,658. Trunk-road lines not counted: N24,200,000,000 (p.1508) and N800,000,000 (p.1569). The senator's statement is taken from press reports of 11 October 2026 (QED, Naija News, Nigerian Eye, Google9ja, The Genius Media); we did not obtain a transcript or a statement from his office.

What this does not establish

Who made the N10 billion allegation, when, and which roads or which year's budget it concerned; none of the reports of the senator's denial names the source, and we could not find it. Who proposed any of the 41 lines, whether Senator Ashiru or another legislator requested them, and whether they were added by the National Assembly or were in the executive's proposal; the Act names agencies, not sponsors. Whether any of the N13,224,977,702 has been released, which contractors were engaged, and whether any of the roads has been built; the Act records appropriations, not payments. Whether the duplicated lines for Aliu/Aliyu Katsina Road and Na Royal Drive are separate sections or overlap. Whether the roads the senator says he facilitated appear in the 2024 or 2025 Appropriation Acts, which were not tested. Whether every place name was assigned to the right local government area: the selection rests on place names in the line descriptions, and lines that name only 'Kwara State' without a town were not counted. Nothing in the documents suggests wrongdoing by the senator or anyone else, and none is alleged. Senator Ashiru's office was not asked for comment.