UK Report Exposes Nigeria’s Worst-Governed States: Zamfara, Kwara, Benue Top Shame List

A scathing new report has ranked Zamfara, Kwara, and Benue States as the worst-governed in Nigeria between 2023 and 2025, laying bare a cocktail of leadership failures, collapsing infrastructure, policy inconsistency, and deepening insecurity.

The damning midterm governance review, released in London by the Good Governance Rating Index (GGRI), paints a grim picture of state administration, warning that billions of naira in federal allocations have evaporated without meaningful impact on citizens’ lives.

According to the UK-based organisation, which monitors governance and accountability across developing democracies, the three states performed “well below the national average” on critical indicators such as:

Healthcare delivery

Education standards

Infrastructure development

Economic opportunities

Transparency and accountability

Security management


The findings were drawn from a mix of government records, independent audits, citizen feedback, and field surveys conducted between May 2023 and August 2025.

“What we see in these states is a complete disconnect between public resources and public welfare,” the report stated, noting that while federal allocations continue to flow, they are swallowed up by corruption, poor planning, and weak governance.

GGRI analysts also highlighted that Zamfara remains crippled by banditry and mass poverty, Kwara struggles with weak policy direction and dilapidated infrastructure, while Benue reels under perennial insecurity and unpaid workers’ salaries.

The report has already sparked heated conversations among policy experts and civil society groups, with calls for urgent reforms to rescue the affected states from what one activist described as “a spiral of failure and hopelessness.”