REVEALED: Katsina, Rivers, Lagos among the biggest beneficiaries of Paris Club refund

The federal government has finally revealed how much of the Paris Club refund was received by each state, with Katsina and oil producing states leading the pack.

According to data released late Wednesday, Katsina, Rivers, Bayelsa, Akwa Ibom, Delta, and Lagos received N14.5 billion each.

The states with the lowest allocation were Taraba, Adamawa, Ondo, Kwara, Gombe, and Ekiti which got between N4.2 billion and N8.9 billion each.

Data on Kano state is unavailable.

“Paris Club refund” is a fall-out from the wrongful deductions from states to pay Nigeria’s foreign debts in 2005.

Whereas many of the states did not take foreign loans, the federal government wrongfully took money from the federation account to pay off the creditors, thereby denying the debt-free states their share of revenue.

In 2005,  Nigeria finally settled the debts by paying the Paris Club of creditors $12 billion to  get a $18 billion write-off, but states that did not take foreign loans protested.

They are now being refunded their portion from the federation revenue that was used to pay off the debts.

President Muhammadu Buhari has ordered release of the second tranche of the money, but details are not out yet.

Here is a full breakdown of what each state received in the first tranche: