EXCLUSIVE: Ogun Governor Abiodun Budgets Fresh N6.6billion For Vehicles After Spending N5.8billion On Same In Two Years Amid Failure To Remit Workers' Pensions

A SaharaReporters' review of the Ogun State 2025 approved budget has shown that the office of the executive governor, Dapo Abiodun, plans to spend N6.6 billion on the purchase of Toyota Fortuners and Landcruisers in 2025.

This development comes after a total of N5.8 billion was spent on the same purpose between 2023 and 2024.

The monies were spent under the budget description for the purchase of "Fifteen Toyota Fortuners and Thirteen Toyota LandCruiser."

In 2023, N2.1 billion was expended for this purpose, while between January and September 2024, a sum of N3.7 billion was spent.

Despite these previous expenditures, another N6.6 billion has been budgeted in the 2025 fiscal year for the same purpose.

While the state governor continues to spend heavily on Toyota vehicles, workers in Ogun State recently embarked on an indefinite strike over issues surrounding pensions.

SaharaReporters previously reported that the Ogun State chapter of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Organised Labour directed all civil and public servants in the state to withdraw their services indefinitely over unresolved issues concerning the Ogun State Pension Reform Law.

The resolution was reached at the General Parliament of Ogun State Civil/Public Service Workers held on Monday, July 14, 2025, at the Arcade Ground, Oke-Mosan, Abeokuta.

The directive took effect from 12am, Tuesday, July 15, 2025, with a stern warning:

"All members are directed to withdraw their services till further notice. Any staff who flouts this directive does so at his or her own risk and the Congress will not claim any responsibility towards such staff."

"We expect the government to as soon as possible call for dialogue on the demands of the teeming workers of the State Civil/Public Service. We shall continue to keep us updated on further developments. A workers united, can never be defeated."

The NLC and Organised Labour, in a statement, explained that the indefinite suspension followed an emergency Statewide Congress where workers voted to suspend work over the “dysfunctional Ogun State Pension Reform Law [OGSPRL] 2008, amended 2013,” which established a Contributory Pension Scheme.

"Practically, in its seventeen [17] years of its passage as a law, from all indicators, the CPS has, at best, been practiced in complete breach of the OGSPRL 2008."

"Only 34 months (i.e., 3 years less 2 months) of the expected 204 months (17 years) of the deductions from both sides, i.e., the State/Local Governments, were remitted to the Pension Funds Administrators."

"In the last 14 years, and still counting, monthly deductions only from workers’ salaries have been diligently consistent without remittance to their PFAs!"

"We recalled of the widely publicised Adekunle Hassan Pension Reform Committee set up back in 2022. Neither its findings nor its recommendations were released."

"Nor was there any definitive concrete step taken to address the issue. Countless correspondences on it were written and delivered to the State authorities with no single response."

In a related development, athletes who represented the state at the National Sports Festival also protested delays in the payment of their allowances.

The aggrieved athletes blocked and shut down the Games Village in protest over the non-payment of their entitlements.

"Many hours on, the Team Ogun athletes are adamant, Babcock University gate is still locked. Athletes are still stranded at the Games Village while officiating officials are still waiting at the various venues," Patrick Omorodion, a source close to the festival, wrote in a Facebook post seen by SaharaReporters.

SaharaReporters also reported that the protesting athletes locked the entrance to the Games Village, located at Babcock University in Ilishan-Remo, preventing movement in and out of the facility and halting access to key competition venues across the state.