Inside Nigeria’s enduring case for rebuilding an excess crude account amid oil boom

Nigeria is an oil-rich country that consistently struggles to save its oil money. That contradiction is one of the most stubborn stories in the country’s economic history, and it centres on an account that was created with noble intentions, grew to extraordinary heights, and was then repeatedly raided until almost nothing was left.

The Excess Crude Account, or ECA, was built to be Nigeria’s financial safety net — a place to store the extra money earned when oil prices rise above what the government had planned for in its budget. The idea was simple: if the country budgeted for oil at, say, $57 per barrel, and the market price was $79, the difference would go into savings. Those savings would then cushion the country when oil prices fell, budgets came under pressure, and the economy needed support.

The account was created in 2004 under the then President Olusegun Obasanjo, who drew inspiration from models used by other resource-rich countries. Chile, for instance, had built a Stabilization Fund in the 1980s that saved the windfall from copper price booms and drew it down during busts, giving the country fiscal stability across economic cycles. Obasanjo wanted the same for Nigeria. When he left office in 2007, the ECA held $20 billion, a sum that spoke to years of disciplined saving during a long commodity boom. It was, at that point, one of the most consequential fiscal decisions any Nigerian government had ever made.

What happened next is a story of political pressure, legal battles, constitutional ambiguity, and spending decisions that, taken together, drained nearly every dollar from the account. By July 2022, the ECA had fallen to just $376,655 — a sum that Kingsley Moghalu, former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, noted was roughly the cost of buying a two-bedroom flat in most American cities. By 2025, it had recovered only marginally, sitting at just over $535,000 under the Tinubu administration. For a country that had once held $22 billion in a single savings account, the collapse was total.

In 2017, the Natural Resource Governance Institute ranked the ECA as the most poorly governed sovereign wealth fund among 33 resource-rich countries in the world.

The story matters now for a specific reason: oil prices are rising again, and Nigeria’s production has been recovering after years of theft, vandalism, and underinvestment that had depressed output to as low as 700,000 barrels per day. Output recovered to around 1.7 million barrels per day in 2025. That recovery, combined with prices above Nigeria’s budget benchmark, means the country is once again in a position where a properly functioning ECA could be accumulating significant savings. The question facing policymakers, economists, and citizens is whether Nigeria is ready to do what it failed to do before: save the windfall rather than spend it.

This article traces the full arc of the Excess Crude Account — from its creation and peak, through its depletion, to the structural failures that made the losses possible — and makes the case that rebuilding and properly anchoring the account is one of the most important fiscal steps Nigeria can take right now.

What the ECA is, and why it was introduced

To understand the Excess Crude Account, it helps to understand the problem it was designed to solve. Nigeria’s economy is heavily dependent on oil. Oil exports account for the majority of the country’s foreign exchange earnings and a large share of government revenues. That dependence creates a particular kind of vulnerability: when oil prices are high, money flows easily into government coffers, spending rises, and the economy feels flush. When prices fall, revenues collapse, spending commitments remain, and the country is forced into painful budget cuts or expensive borrowing. This boom-and-bust pattern has defined Nigerian fiscal policy for decades, and it is the pattern the ECA was meant to break.

The mechanism the ECA uses is straightforward. The Nigerian government sets a price benchmark for crude oil in its annual budget — a conservative estimate of what oil will sell for during the year. Any revenue earned above that benchmark is supposed to go into the ECA rather than into the general budget. In years when oil prices are high, the account fills up. In years when prices are low, the government can draw on the saved funds to cover shortfalls without having to cut services or borrow at expensive rates. This is the same logic that has made sovereign wealth funds and stabilization funds successful in countries from Norway to Botswana.

The account belongs, in principle, to all three tiers of the Nigerian government: federal, state, and local. Withdrawals are supposed to require the agreement of all tiers. This arrangement reflects the federal structure of Nigeria, where oil revenues are constitutionally required to be shared among the different levels of government. The Federation Account, established under Section 162 of the 1999 Constitution, is the main vehicle through which oil revenues are distributed. The ECA exists outside the strict constitutional framework, which became one of the central sources of conflict over its management. Money in the ECA was saved before distribution, while the constitution’s logic assumed all revenues would flow immediately into the Federation Account for sharing.

The timing of the ECA’s creation was fortunate in one important respect. The 2000s were a period of rising commodity prices globally, driven by rapid industrialisation in China and other emerging economies. Oil prices, which had been below $30 per barrel for much of the 1990s, climbed steeply through the mid-2000s, hitting $147 per barrel in 2008. Nigeria, which was producing well above two million barrels per day during this period, was generating enormous revenues above its budget benchmarks. Much of that windfall flowed into the ECA, building it to its peak of more than $22 billion by 2008. That accumulation represented a genuine achievement, and it gave Nigeria a buffer that proved valuable during the 2008 global financial crisis, when the country was able to weather the storm without seeking emergency assistance from international financial institutions.

The ECA, in its best years, was more than just a savings account. It was proof that Nigeria could practice fiscal discipline, resist the temptation to spend every petrodollar as soon as it arrived, and build a meaningful reserve for future use. The tragedy of what followed is sharpened by that early success: the account worked when it was allowed to work. The failures that came later were not failures of the concept but failures of governance and political will.

The rise and fall: from $22 Billion to near zero

The arc of the Excess Crude Account is one of the starkest fiscal stories in Nigerian history. The account grew from roughly $5.1 billion in 2004, when it was established, to above $20 billion by the time Obasanjo left office in 2007. Under President Umaru Yar’adua, who took over that year, the account continued to swell, reaching its all-time peak of more than $22 billion in 2008, during the same year the global financial crisis hit. That peak was also the beginning of the end. Nigeria used the ECA to cushion the economy during the crisis, and simultaneously faced intense political pressure from state governors who wanted their share of the accumulated savings distributed immediately.

The governors, united under the Nigerian Governors Forum, filed a lawsuit at the Supreme Court in 2008, led by Bukola Saraki, who was then Governor of Kwara State. They argued that the ECA was unconstitutional because it held funds that should have been immediately distributed through the Federation Account under Section 162 of the 1999 Constitution. The suit was a declaration of intent: the governors wanted the money shared, not saved. President Yar’adua eventually opted for an out-of-court settlement rather than a courtroom confrontation with 36 state executives. The account fell from $22 billion to $6.5 billion by the end of 2009, losing $8.5 billion in roughly two years through distributions, withdrawals, and pressure settlements.

The bleeding did not stop. When President Goodluck Jonathan took office as acting president in 2010 after the death of Yar’adua, the governors immediately returned to demand the remaining $6.5 billion. Jonathan, in a series of negotiations, withdrew $2 billion in May 2010 to augment federal allocation arrears and pay state debts.

In August 2010, the governors came back for the remaining $4 billion. Jonathan withdrew $3 billion from that balance, sending $1 billion to the newly forming Sovereign Wealth Fund and sharing the remaining $2 billion. By 2011, even the $1 billion in the nascent Sovereign Wealth Fund was contested in court by the governors, who wanted it shared. The fund was eventually distributed, leaving the ECA at just over $2 billion when Jonathan handed power to Muhammadu Buhari in 2015.

During this period, Adams Oshiomhole, then Governor of Edo State, accused the Jonathan government of unilaterally withdrawing $2.1 billion from the account without the agreement of the states, saying publicly: “We have not agreed to take anything out of it, and yet it has been drawn down to about $2 billion, which means $2.1 billion has disappeared.”

The Buhari administration inherited an ECA that was already deeply depleted and proceeded to drain what remained. In 2019, the government withdrew $1 billion for military procurement, including $496 million for 12 Super Tucano fighter jets purchased from the United States government. Presidential spokesman Garba Shehu defended the withdrawal, stating that the procurement was conducted as a government-to-government transaction without contractors or commission agents, and that the equipment was critical for national security. Further withdrawals for military equipment, Paris Club refunds to states, and contributions to the Sovereign Wealth Fund steadily ate through the remainder.

By January 2022, only $35.7 million remained, according to a presentation to the National Economic Council by the Minister of State for Budget, Prince Clem Agba. Six months later, even that was gone. By July 2022, the account stood at $376,655 — effectively empty.

Under President Bola Tinubu, who took office in May 2023, the ECA inherited a near-zero balance. Analysis of 15 National Economic Council meetings between June 2023 and October 2025 showed the account rising from $473,754 to $535,823 — a gain of 13 percent in two years, at a time when oil prices and production had improved meaningfully.

The pace of recovery tells its own story: after decades of enormous windfalls, Nigeria’s savings account for oil revenues held, as of late 2025, less than $600,000.

Year-on-Year ECA balance snapshot: 2004 to 2025

The table below tracks the known or estimated balance of the Excess Crude Account at key moments across its history. Some figures are drawn from official disclosures, others from CBN reports and National Economic Council presentations. Gaps reflect periods of incomplete official reporting.

A timeline of how the ECA grew and was depleted

This section stands as its own record of the account’s full history, from creation to near-extinction.

2004: President Olusegun Obasanjo creates the Excess Crude Account to save oil revenues earned above the budget benchmark price. The idea is modelled partly on Chile’s copper stabilisation fund. Initial balance is approximately $5 billion. The account is not backed by any law or constitutional provision, only by an executive directive.

2004 to 2007: Nigeria experiences a sustained oil boom. Prices rise from below $30 per barrel to above $60, and Nigeria’s production is relatively high. The ECA accumulates steadily. Former Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who serves in this period, later credits this savings discipline as key to Nigeria’s resilience during later downturns. By the time Obasanjo hands over in May 2007, the account holds $20 billion, with $5 billion pledged for the National Independent Power Project, leaving a free balance of $15 billion.

2008: Under President Umaru Yar’adua, oil prices spike to $147 per barrel and the ECA reaches its all-time high of more than $22 billion. The global financial crisis then strikes in the second half of the year. Nigeria uses the ECA to cushion the economy and avoid seeking IMF emergency support — a genuine demonstration of its value. But the Governors Forum, led by Bukola Saraki, files a Supreme Court suit in 2008, arguing the money should be immediately shared under the constitution.

2009: Yar’adua settles with the governors out of court rather than fight the case. Distributions and withdrawals slash the balance from $22 billion to $6.5 billion. The ECA loses more money in two years than it had taken almost four years to accumulate.

2010: Goodluck Jonathan takes over as acting president. The governors press him immediately for distributions. Jonathan withdraws $2 billion in May 2010 and another $3 billion in August, sending $1 billion to the new Sovereign Wealth Fund and sharing $2 billion. The account drops below $4 billion. In a related development, the National Economic Council approves the creation of what will become the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority as a more structured vehicle for oil savings.

2011: The governors go back to court to demand the $1 billion in the new Sovereign Wealth Fund be shared. The fund is shared. The ECA is left at just over $2 billion as Jonathan’s full term begins.

2011 to 2014: The account fluctuates. It rises to $11.5 billion in 2012 as oil revenues recover, but falls again as governments draw on the funds. In November 2013, Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi, then chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum, publicly demands explanations after claiming the balance fell from $9 billion to $4 billion without adequate explanation. The period is marked by repeated allegations of unauthorised withdrawals and a near-total absence of transparent accounting.

2015: Buhari takes office with $2.07 billion in the ECA. The account fluctuates slightly upward, reaching $2.3 billion in 2016 and 2017, then begins a rapid decline as the government draws on it to fund security operations and bridge fiscal deficits.

2018: The CBN annual report records the balance at $480 million, down from $2.45 billion the prior year. The main cause cited is drawdowns to bridge financing gaps between the three tiers of government.

2019: In July, controversy erupts when it emerges that $1 billion has been withdrawn to purchase military equipment, including 12 Super Tucano aircraft from the United States. President Buhari’s spokesman Garba Shehu defends the withdrawal. Critics, including senators, call it unconstitutional. The balance falls to around $321 million by October 2019.

2021: The ECA is at $72.4 million, according to former Finance Minister Zainab Ahmed. This is despite Brent crude averaging $71 per barrel in 2021, above Nigeria’s $57 benchmark — meaning significant excess revenues should have been accruing.

2022 (January): The ECA stands at $35.7 million, confirmed by the National Economic Council. Presidential media aide Tolu Ogunlesi explains the decline as the result of security spending, Paris Club refunds to states, and Sovereign Wealth Fund contributions. Despite crude oil averaging above the benchmark price throughout 2021, little had been saved.

2022 (July): The Office of the Accountant General discloses that the ECA has fallen to $376,655, down from $35.7 million in June. The federal government attributes the withdrawal to an advance payment for new Offshore Patrol Vessels for the Nigerian Navy.

2023 to 2025: Under President Tinubu, the account shows marginal improvement. The FAAC meeting in March 2023 confirms a balance of $473,754.57. By October 2025, the figure has edged up to $535,823.39 — a 13 percent improvement over 27 months.

Why the ECA failed: governors, politics, and no law to back it up

The Excess Crude Account did not fail because the idea was bad. It failed because it was poorly constructed and placed in an environment where political pressures were stronger than institutional protections. Kingsley Moghalu, the former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, said the ECA’s collapse was predictable from the start: the account was not backed by any law or constitutional provision, and that absence of a legal framework meant that each successive administration could treat it as a fund to be drawn on whenever finances were tight.

The contrast with Chile’s model is instructive. Chile’s Stabilization Fund was embedded in a formal fiscal rule, giving it a legal basis that made arbitrary withdrawals politically and legally costly. Nigeria’s ECA had no such protection.

The constitutional problem was fundamental. The 1999 Constitution of Nigeria recognises only two main federal accounts: the Federation Account under Section 162 and the Consolidated Revenue Fund. The ECA existed outside both. The constitution’s plain reading, as argued by state governors and their lawyers, was that all oil revenues should flow immediately into the Federation Account for distribution. Holding billions of dollars in a separate account, however sensible the economic logic, ran against the letter of the constitution as many interpreted it. The PLAC Legist — the Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre, for instance, noted that the Senate itself had at one point passed a resolution calling the ECA an illegality and a drain pipe, a remarkable description for a government savings fund.

The role of state governors was the most direct and consistent source of pressure on the account. Nigerian governors, who were responsible for their states’ finances and faced political pressure from their own populations to deliver services, had a powerful incentive to push for ECA distributions whenever the account held significant sums. The Nigerian Governors Forum became, in practical terms, an institutional force for depleting the ECA. When Yar’adua negotiated with the governors in 2009, he released $8.5 billion. When Jonathan negotiated in 2010, he released further billions.

Former President Obasanjo later reflected bitterly on this pattern: “I remember when I was president, I initiated the idea of saving the Excess Crude Account for the rainy days, but the governors resisted it and told me there was no need saving because it was already raining.”

The political economy problem was compounded by a culture of fiscal short-termism that ran across all tiers of government. Nigerian budgets are perennially optimistic about oil revenues, and actual spending is often driven by political cycles rather than fiscal planning. Governors who knew they would face elections in a year or two had little personal incentive to support a savings account whose benefits were long-term and whose costs were immediate. State-level revenue pressures meant that distributions from the ECA could fund popular projects, pay civil servant salaries, or build political goodwill in ways that saving the money could not.

Transparency and accountability failures made things worse. For much of its history, the ECA was governed with minimal public oversight. Withdrawals were not consistently published, the account’s operations were not subject to National Assembly appropriation, and the absence of independent auditing made it easy for governments to draw down funds without a clear public reckoning. Eze Onyekpere of the Centre for Social Justice told a 2011 investigation: “What has happened is fiscal rascality of the worst order, pushed mainly from the governors. And we had a federal government that was, for all intents and purposes, a bit spineless.”

When $2.1 billion disappeared from the ECA between November 2014 and sometime in 2015, according to then-Governors Forum Chairman Rotimi Amaechi, no single institution was able to fully account for it.

The legal battle that led to its depletion

The legal conflict over the Excess Crude Account was not a single event but a recurring confrontation that stretched across more than a decade and involved multiple trips to the Supreme Court. The first suit was filed in 2008, when the Nigerian Governors Forum, under the leadership of Bukola Saraki as Kwara State governor, took the federal government to the Supreme Court arguing that the ECA was unconstitutional. The governors cited Section 162 of the 1999 Constitution, which establishes the Federation Account as the repository for federal revenues and mandates their distribution to the three tiers of government. Their legal argument was that money held in the ECA was revenue that had been illegally withheld from immediate distribution.

Former President Yar’adua chose settlement over litigation. Rather than allow the Supreme Court to rule definitively on the constitutionality of the ECA — a ruling that might have resolved the legal question one way or the other — his government negotiated with the governors, releasing funds as the price of their agreement to drop the case. That decision had consequences. By failing to establish a legal precedent either confirming the ECA’s validity or requiring constitutional reform, the Yar’adua settlement left the account in the same ambiguous legal space it had always occupied. Future governments would face the same legal threats without any stronger basis for resistance.

The governors returned to court multiple times after 2009. When the Goodluck Jonathan administration sought to move $1 billion from the ECA into the new Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority — the formal sovereign wealth fund established by an Act of Parliament in 2011 — the governors challenged that as well. They sought a Supreme Court order declaring the Sovereign Wealth Fund itself unconstitutional, arguing that savings vehicles outside the Federation Account violated the constitution. The case dragged on for years, further destabilising the ECA’s institutional standing.

On his part, the Buhari administration faced its own legal controversies over the ECA. When the president authorised the withdrawal of $496 million for Super Tucano aircraft in 2017 without explicit National Assembly approval, senators called for impeachment proceedings. Senator Chukwuka Utazi went as far as arguing the action was an impeachable offence under Section 143 of the constitution. The Senate’s Finance Committee chair threatened the NSIA with a zero budget for 2022 when the sovereign wealth fund refused to submit its accounts for legislative scrutiny. These controversies illustrated how completely the ECA and its successor institutions remained hostage to political confrontations rather than being governed by settled law.

The absence of a constitutional amendment explicitly authorising the ECA and laying out clear rules for its operation was the original sin from which every subsequent problem flowed.

Why the government should not abandon the ECA completely

Despite its failures, the case for maintaining and rebuilding some form of excess crude savings mechanism remains compelling. The most basic argument is one of economic risk management. Nigeria’s government revenues are overwhelmingly dependent on oil, and oil prices are notoriously volatile. Without a savings buffer, every oil price downturn forces the government to cut spending, borrow money at high rates, or both. Nigeria has lived through this cycle repeatedly. The 2015 to 2016 oil price collapse pushed the country into recession. The COVID-19 shock in 2020 sent prices briefly below zero and slashed government revenues. In both cases, the absence of any meaningful savings buffer forced painful adjustments. A functioning ECA, with even a fraction of the capital it once held, would have given policymakers far more room to manoeuvre.

The comparison with Norway is useful, even if sobering. Norway also exports oil and also faces the challenge of managing a finite resource for the benefit of its population across generations. The Norwegians addressed this by creating a Government Pension Fund Global in 1990, backed by clear legislation, independent management, and strict rules about how much of the fund’s returns could be spent each year. The fund now holds over a trillion dollars. Nigeria, which was producing oil at roughly similar volumes to Norway for much of the same period, has nothing comparable. The contrast is not simply about good versus bad governance, though that is part of it. It is also about institutional design: Norway created a savings vehicle with legal protection and independent management, while Nigeria created one with neither.

The Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority, established in 2011, was supposed to fill some of the ECA’s role. Kingsley Moghalu, who played a key role in naming and structuring the NSIA, acknowledged the limits of arriving late: the fund was established in an era of lower crude revenues, after the most valuable years for accumulation had already passed. As of 2023, the NSIA managed approximately $2.5 billion — a meaningful sum for Nigeria but small by international standards and far less than the ECA held at its peak. The NSIA is a better-governed institution than the ECA was, with an independent board and a legal basis in an Act of Parliament. But it remains underfunded and faces its own political pressures.

There is also a macroeconomic argument for rebuilding the ECA that goes beyond simply saving for a rainy day. A well-managed savings account for oil windfalls can help sterilise excess liquidity in the economy — keeping oil money from flooding into the domestic economy in a way that drives inflation and exchange rate appreciation, a phenomenon economists call Dutch disease. Nigeria has experienced elements of Dutch disease throughout its oil history, with oil revenues inflating domestic costs and making non-oil industries less competitive. A robust ECA that holds oil windfalls in foreign currency, away from the domestic economy, can moderate these effects and make the non-oil economy more competitive. The fiscal and macroeconomic arguments point in the same direction: the ECA, reformed and properly anchored, is worth rebuilding.

Perhaps the most important argument for not abandoning the ECA is that the current oil market environment offers a rare opportunity. Nigeria’s production recovery, combined with oil prices that have remained above the government’s budget benchmarks, means that excess revenues are again flowing. The question is whether they will be saved or immediately absorbed into budgetary spending. If the government allows the current moment to pass without rebuilding its savings buffer, it will find itself in exactly the same position the next time prices fall: exposed, without reserves, and forced into painful choices that could have been avoided.

Pathways to rebuilding the account

Rebuilding the Excess Crude Account requires more than political will, though political will is essential. It requires structural changes that address the specific failures that caused the account’s collapse. The first and most important of these is legal anchoring. The ECA must be given a proper legal and constitutional basis. The most durable solution would be a constitutional amendment that explicitly recognises the account, defines what revenues flow into it, sets minimum contribution rules, and restricts the conditions under which money can be withdrawn. Short of a constitutional amendment, a strong Act of Parliament, similar to the one that created the NSIA, could provide at least some protection. The key features would include mandatory contributions when oil prices exceed the budget benchmark, strict withdrawal rules requiring joint agreement of all tiers of government and National Assembly approval, and transparent public reporting of balances and transactions.

The second requirement is resolving the governance conflict with state governors. The governors’ legal challenges have been the most effective weapon against ECA accumulation. Any rebuilt account needs to find a formula that addresses the governors’ legitimate interests — the states are co-owners of oil revenues and have pressing financial needs — while preventing them from simply voting to distribute savings every time they face fiscal pressure. One approach would be to redesign the ECA as a fund with locked-in contributions that cannot be voluntarily distributed but that generate returns credited proportionally to all tiers. A time-lock provision — preventing withdrawals for, say, 24 months after deposit — would at least prevent immediate distributions while allowing access during genuine emergencies. The Stabilisation Account and the Natural Resources Development Fund, both of which have shown more stability than the ECA under Tinubu (growing 229 percent and 46 percent respectively between 2023 and 2025), could serve as models for how consistent accumulation is possible when incentive structures are different.

Third, the account needs independent management insulated from political pressure. The NSIA model provides a template. An independent board with professional financial managers, transparent reporting to the National Assembly, and regular public accounts would make it harder for governments to simply announce withdrawals without scrutiny. The Natural Resource Governance Institute’s damning 2017 ranking of the ECA as the world’s most poorly governed sovereign wealth fund was partly a reflection of this management deficit. Best-practice sovereign wealth funds publish annual reports, have their accounts audited by independent external auditors, and operate under governance frameworks that separate investment management from political decision-making. A reformed ECA should meet these standards.

Fourth, the contribution rules should be automatic rather than discretionary. One reason the ECA remained near-empty even as oil prices rose above the benchmark in 2021 is that the government chose not to deposit excess revenues. An automatic transfer rule — mandating that a fixed percentage of revenues above the benchmark flow directly into the account before being available for budget use — would remove the discretion that makes it easy to skip contributions during politically inconvenient periods. Chile’s fiscal rule, which Moghalu cited as the model Obasanjo was trying to replicate, worked precisely because it was mandatory and rule-bound rather than optional.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Nigerians themselves need to demand accountability for the ECA in a way that has historically been absent. Ezenwa Nwagwu of Transparency International in Nigeria noted in 2011: “Citizens would have to become a little more vigilant and ask government to be responsible.”

Civil society organisations, the National Assembly, and the broader public all have roles to play in holding governments accountable for how they manage the account. The ECA’s depletion happened largely without serious public accountability. A rebuilt account needs to be surrounded by a culture of oversight that did not exist before.

Epilogue

Key actors and the roles they played

Olusegun Obasanjo (President, 1999–2007): Created the ECA in 2004 and maintained the discipline to grow it to $20 billion by the end of his term. Resisted early pressure from governors to distribute the funds. His administration’s fiscal savings during the oil boom remain the high-water mark of Nigerian oil revenue management.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (Finance Minister, 2003–2006 and 2011–2015): A key architect of the ECA under Obasanjo and a consistent defender of fiscal savings during the Jonathan years. Later accused by Adams Oshiomhole of authorising the withdrawal of $2 billion for fuel subsidies without the agreement of state governments.

Bukola Saraki (Governor of Kwara State, 2003–2011; Senate President, 2015–2019): Led the Nigerian Governors Forum’s 2008 Supreme Court challenge against the ECA. His action triggered the legal and political process that directly led to the account’s first major depletion.

Umaru Yar’adua (President, 2007–2010): Settled the governors’ court case out of court, releasing $8.5 billion and beginning the decline of the account. His decision to avoid a definitive Supreme Court ruling left the legal question unresolved for all future governments.

Goodluck Jonathan (President, 2010–2015): Oversaw further distributions to the governors in 2010 and 2011. The ECA fell from $6.5 billion to approximately $2 billion during his administration, though a brief recovery to $11.5 billion was recorded in 2012. The Jonathan government is also credited with establishing the NSIA in 2011.

Muhammadu Buhari (President, 2015–2023): Inherited $2.07 billion and presided over the account’s near-total depletion. The $1 billion military withdrawal in 2019 and subsequent drawdowns left the account at $376,655 by July 2022. His government defended the withdrawals as necessary for national security.

Garba Shehu (Senior Special Adviser, Buhari administration): Defended the $1 billion military withdrawal in 2019, providing a detailed breakdown of how the money was spent on aircraft, naval equipment, and army hardware.

Adams Oshiomhole (Governor of Edo State, 2008–2016): One of the more vocal governors on ECA accountability, publicly challenging the Jonathan administration over unexplained withdrawals and accusing the Finance Ministry of releasing funds without state consent.

Rotimi Amaechi (Governor of Rivers State and Governors Forum Chairman, 2007–2015): Publicly raised the alarm in November 2013 when the ECA balance fell from $9 billion to $4 billion without explanation, demanding accountability from the NNPC and the federal government.

Kingsley Moghalu (Deputy Governor, CBN, 2009–2014): Played a key role in planning the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority and suggested the institution’s name. Later became one of the clearest public voices explaining why the ECA failed, drawing direct comparisons to Chile’s more successful stabilisation fund model.

Bola Tinubu (President, 2023–present): Inherited an ECA at $473,754. Under his administration, the account has grown marginally to $535,823 over roughly two years, with oil production recovering to 1.7 million barrels per day in 2025.