Ondo State emerged as the least indebted state in the South-West around mid-2025, according to Q1 domestic debt figures — a milestone quietly celebrated by Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa’s administration. With a domestic debt of just ₦11.76 billion, compared to Lagos’ ₦874 billion and Ogun’s ₦190 billion, Ondo boasts the cleanest balance sheet in the region. Yet this “achievement” hides a stark paradox: in development economics, ultra-low debt in a resource-rich state is often not prudence — it is paralysis.
Productive debt fuels transformation. Lagos borrows heavily but strategically, converting every trillion naira into rail lines, Lekki Free Zone factories, and revenue streams to service the loans. Ondo, by contrast, borrows almost nothing — and achieves almost nothing in return. Despite abundant oil, bitumen, gas, cocoa, a long Atlantic coastline, and the Olokola/OK LNG footprint, Ondo lacks a deep-sea port, industrial corridor, gas-to-power backbone, or meaningful export-processing zone. Its natural wealth lies dormant because risk-averse governance dominates the statehouse.
This cautious approach was on full display on 25 November 2025 when Governor Aiyedatiwa, while swearing in new appointees, highlighted the Performance and Project Implementation Monitoring Unit (PPIMU) and its four pillars — time, cost, quality, flexibility — as the engine of his “OUR EASE” agenda.
A crucial point: PPIMU is not Aiyedatiwa’s invention. Created in November 2021 by the late Governor Rotimi Akeredolu, with his son Babajide Akeredolu as pioneer Director-General, the unit has existed for four years with mixed results. November 2025 marked merely a leadership change — a new driver, not a new vehicle. Whether Aiyedatiwa sharpens its teeth remains uncertain.
Properly empowered — with direct access to the governor, authority to freeze payments, legal backing, and a public digital dashboard — PPIMU could end Nigeria’s ritual of announcing projects that never materialize. Milestone payments, independent quality audits, public scorecards, and EFCC referrals for serial defaulters would finally impose consequences on contractors and ministries alike.
Yet even a world-class monitoring unit cannot conjure economic vision. PPIMU can ensure a road is built on time and to specification; it cannot decide whether Ondo should have world-class ports, petrochemical clusters, or coastal tourism cities in the first place. Perfect execution of small, safe projects still leaves the state fiscally immaculate but developmentally broke.
Governor Aiyedatiwa now enjoys a rare luxury in Nigerian governance: massive fiscal headroom. With debt this low, Ondo could borrow ₦300–500 billion on excellent terms tomorrow and remain among the least indebted states. That borrowing capacity is a loaded weapon lying on the table. The question is whether he has the courage to fire it at transformative infrastructure: the Olokola Deep-Sea Port, an industrial corridor from Ore to the coast, a gas distribution grid, a bitumen refinery, or a cocoa-processing hub that adds value rather than exporting raw beans.
Until that happens, low debt is not a crown — it is a confession. Ondo is fast becoming the South-West’s tragic irony: the richest state in natural resources, yet the poorest in governmental ambition. Lagos and Ogun borrow to build tomorrow. Ondo saves pennies today and wonders why tomorrow never comes.
Governor Aiyedatiwa must decide: will history remember him as the man who kept the books tidy, or the leader who finally turned Ondo’s latent wealth into lived prosperity? The paradox is unsustainable. The clock is ticking louder than ever.
Kunle Odusola-Stevenson
Public Relations, Policy & Governance Analyst | Lagos
