21 days ago
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Posted On: July 5th 2026, 09:00 am
Economics of Culture II
There’s a government agency in Nigeria that officially never existed - It still had a ₦1.3 billion budget line. A real line item, in the actual 2026 Appropriation Act, for an agency the Presidency now says was never created.
To get there, it had to pass ministry review. Committee review. The National Assembly & the Presidential assent. That’s an entire relay of checkpoints where nobody asked, “does this exist?”
There’s a bribery allegation attached to this story, and a court will sort that out but the part that doesn’t need a verdict is simpler, and more uncomfortable:
“a fictional agency moved further through Nigeria’s federal budgeting process than most real ones manage in a decade.”
That should worry us more than the allegation does.
Full breakdown — “A Fully Funded Ghost: Tales of Aso Rock’s Oversight Problem” — link in bio
#AtandaDoesTheMath #Nigeria #EconomicsofCulture #PublicFinance #AsoRock
There’s a government agency in Nigeria that officially never existed - It still had a ₦1.3 billion budget line. A real line item, in the actual 2026 Appropriation Act, for an agency the Presidency now says was never created.
To get there, it had to pass ministry review. Committee review. The National Assembly & the Presidential assent. That’s an entire relay of checkpoints where nobody asked, “does this exist?”
There’s a bribery allegation attached to this story, and a court will sort that out but the part that doesn’t need a verdict is simpler, and more uncomfortable:
“a fictional agency moved further through Nigeria’s federal budgeting process than most real ones manage in a decade.”
That should worry us more than the allegation does.
Full breakdown — “A Fully Funded Ghost: Tales of Aso Rock’s Oversight Problem” — link in bio
#AtandaDoesTheMath #Nigeria #EconomicsofCulture #PublicFinance #AsoRock
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