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These tactics blended fiscal innovation, technocratic recruitment, institutional reform, political networking, and strategic confrontation with the federal government. They created the so-called “Lagos Model”, a proof-of-concept for sub-national self-sufficiency that influenced his successors (Fashola, Ambode, Sanwo-Olu) and later his national approach.
In Nigeria, the legal framework explicitly criminalizes the payment of ransoms to kidnappers or terrorists.
This is not an isolated comedy of errors. It is a textbook illustration of the black holes deliberately engineered into Nigeria’s public finance architecture opaque pockets that swallow money, evade legislative eyes, and render executives unaccountable. The Bodija tranche is merely one shiny pebble in a vast, dark galaxy of special interventions, contingency advances, service-wide votes, ecological funds, security “emergency” deductions, and other discretionary vehicles that allow the executive to move (or park) billions with minimal sunlight.
This was enabled by authoritarian control: no independent legislature or judiciary, weak oversight, and a patronage network treating public coffers as extensions of personal or regime power. International complicity—lax due diligence by banks—facilitated laundering through U.S. institutions and bond deals.
The response by the President's Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to Cardinal John Onaiyekan's television interview reveals a troubling misunderstanding of constitutional democracy. It also exposes a growing tendency within this administration to confuse criticism with disloyalty and accountability with discourtesy.
Centre for Nigeria Progress 