A governorship aspirant for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Lagos State, Funso Doherty, has strongly criticized Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu’s N4.237 trillion 2026 budget proposal, citing inaccuracies, weak transparency, and flawed spending priorities in an open letter to the Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly. Doherty pointed out numerical flaws, arguing that debt servicing is incorrectly classified under recurrent expenditure, which distorts the budget figures, and noted that the sum of sectoral allocations is significantly less than the overall budget total. He accused the Lagos State Government of lacking transparency by not making detailed proposals public before passage, limiting public review, and expressed concern over the massive spending on consultancy and professional services, which accounts for nearly 15 per cent of recurrent expenditure. Furthermore, Doherty criticized the state for allegedly underfunding key social sectors, noting that allocations for education, health, housing, and water supply combined made up only 17 per cent of total expenditure over five years, claiming that the capital allocation for the House of Assembly alone reportedly exceeded the combined capital budgets for health and education in 2025. He also noted a pattern of overly optimistic revenue forecasts, which he claims undermines effective government planning, and urged lawmakers to mandate that detailed budget proposals be made public during the legislative process. The Lagos State Government offered no immediate response to the allegations.
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