The Central Bank of Nigeria is replacing the paper-heavy, largely manual process it uses to collect government spending and revenue figures with a digital platform.
The change covers the 36 states, the Federal Capital Territory and all 774 local government areas, and is meant to make the data policymakers rely on to arrive faster and with fewer errors.
The Sub-National Fiscal Survey is the periodic exercise through which the central bank collects revenue, expenditure and financing figures from state and local governments. Until now, it has been run largely by hand and only twice a year.
Officials say that pace and method no longer match the demands of modern policy making, so the bank’s Statistics Department is moving the questionnaire onto a digital platform and urging subnational governments to submit more often.
The Director of the Statistics Department, Dr Usman Moses Okpanachi, said at a Sub-national Fiscal Statistics Stakeholders’ engagement in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, that the initiative is meant to strengthen the chain linking fiscal transactions to policy decisions.
That chain begins in ministries, departments and agencies, and in local governments, where money is collected and spent, and ends with the evidence-based policies built on those records.
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Okpanachi explained that reliable fiscal statistics are critical to sound economic management. According to him, they let governments assess how much revenue they are raising, how they are spending it, what they need to borrow and where fiscal pressures are building.
They also give policymakers a clearer picture of public-sector activity and what it means for aggregate demand, liquidity, borrowing conditions and inflation. In simple terms, government spending puts money into the economy, and government revenue takes money out.
The gap between the two and how that gap is financed can push prices, interest rates, and the supply of money in either direction. A central bank that sees those flows late or sees them wrongly risks setting policy on a picture of the economy that is already out of date.
“The point carries added weight now”, Okpanachi said, because the bank is strengthening a forward-looking, data-dependent monetary policy framework and moving towards a more explicit inflation-targeting regime.
Under inflation targeting, a central bank commits to keeping price growth near a stated goal and adjusts its tools in response to incoming data, so the quality and timeliness of that data matter more.
“The largely manual, twice-yearly survey has faced challenges with timeliness, logistics, validation and processing. Data collected on paper or through loosely structured returns must be physically moved, keyed in, checked and reconciled, and each step is a chance for delay or error”, he said
According to Okpanachi, the digital platform is designed to address those constraints directly. He said it will standardise data entry, improve validation, simplify submissions, enable better monitoring and allow corrections to be traced. It will also support a transition to more frequent and sustainable quarterly returns, replacing the current twice-yearly cycle.
Okpanachi stressed, however, that technology is not a substitute for discipline. He said it would complement, rather than replace, sound record-keeping, proper reconciliation and professional judgement. A digital form can flag an entry that does not add up, he indicated, but it cannot ensure that the underlying books were properly kept in the first place.
Three Principles Implementation
He urged states and local governments to anchor implementation in three principles: timeliness, integrity and continuity.
In practice, that means submitting returns promptly, validating and reconciling figures before sending them, and appointing designated focal officers so that the process does not stall when staff are transferred or reassigned.
“The success of the initiative, will ultimately be measured by more complete and consistent returns, faster submissions, improved validation and better fiscal information for Decision-making” Okpanachi said, .
He assured stakeholders of the bank’s continued technical and operational support through its branches and the Statistics Department.
The nationwide engagement began on October 26, 2026, and is delivered through practical sessions that bring state and local government fiscal officers together to use the digital questionnaire.
Participants learn the validation requirements and practise submission and correction procedures. As of November 6, 2026, 16 states and their local governments had been covered, with strong government support and attendance reaching 100 per cent in almost all the states visited.
The remaining states are expected to be covered by December 4, while the Federal Capital Territory is scheduled for December 9 and 10.
After the sessions, trained officers are expected to pass on the knowledge within their institutions and begin submitting returns through the digital platform. The Statistics Department will then consolidate implementation outcomes into a national report.
The initiative forms part of the central bank’s broader data architecture and transformation agenda. It is expected to strengthen fiscal data for state and local government planning, budgeting and policy evaluation, while giving monetary, financial and fiscal policymakers more timely and reliable information.
