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By Zik Gbemre
Nigeria is a country that has 36 States plus a Federal Capital Territory (FCT), which depends on monthly Federal Government allocations to run as entities of Government. But apart from Lagos State and very few others, most of the States in the country cannot survive or even operate/function as State Governments without these Federal monthly allocations. For us, we believe this is a big shame because it has made the country keep having State Governors and Local Government Council Chairmen who are just lazy, lacks innovation to develop their States/Councils over the years.
Nigeria as a sovereign state, operates a Federal political structure that recognizes Three Tiers of Government. These Three Tiers as stipulated by the Constitution authenticate the Federal, State and Local Councils as the political positions that must exercise executive powers in Nigeria. This entails the access to the Federation Account directly from their separate executive seats to ensure even distribution of national dividends. Under the current revenue sharing formula, the Federal government takes 52.68 percent, the States 26.72 percent and the Local Governments, 20.60 percent with 13 percent derivation revenue going to the oil producing States. This fiscal structure is meant to enhance macroeconomic development and stability. According to Stevens, et al (2001), the success of Nigeria’s federal system for effective governance depends on an appropriate division of responsibilities and resources between Federal, State and Local authorities supported by a sufficient institutional capacity at each of these levels to carry out its assigned functions. Critical to this success, also, is financial capacity of each level of government to carry out its assigned functions. But because Nigeria can be described as a mono-economy (majorly depends on oil revenue), especially, in terms of the federally collected revenue, each of the different levels of government depends largely on its share of the federally collected revenue to carry out its functions apart from Lagos State and few other States which have maintained high internally generated fund over the past few years.
This situation has left the nation with State Governors and Local Government Council Chairmen who just sit and wait for Federal allocations to share, after payment of salaries to idle-sitting workers who practically do nothing in their various offices. They just wait for the monthly ‘goody-goody’ that must come whether small or big, without making efforts to come up with innovative ways to develop and utilize their God-given natural and human resourcefulness so as to increase their internally-generated revenue for further development. It is no news that most of the States are richly endowed with various categories of natural resources, good farmlands and solid minerals including gems with some of them ranked as world leader, example, bitumen in Ondo. Zamfara has gold, a gem. Seven states – Cross River, Rivers, Adamawa, Taraba, Plateau, Bauchi and Kano have of late been discovered with valued quantities of uranium, a quality resource. Investing in them would help the States to grow their economies and encourage saving as well as enable the country be less of a mono-economy.
Is it not a shame that State Governors are, every now and then going cap-in-hand to Abuja to hold meetings with the President and beg to be given money/bailout funds apparently to settle backlog of owed salaries. What is even more annoying is to see these State Governors lamenting the bad shapes of their States, yet there are no evidence of governors cutting down on their lavish lifestyles or making other sacrifices on behalf of the States. Instead of saving to reinvest, States in Nigeria are only known to always owe, throwing them into an economic quagmire. And under the subsisting statutory revenue allocation formula, Local Governments, the third-tier of government takes 20 percent from the Federation Account, placing them on the first-line-charge like the Federal Government and States. Unfortunately, Local Government money gets to them through State Governors. As such, State Governors are known to routinely abuse this abnormal construct: they may remit, partially remit, or not remit at all to their Local Governments.
Truth be told, no nation can grow economically with the above practice of how its generated revenue are utilized. No country can achieve needed development when its State Government have that kind of attitude towards allocations. With this prevailing situation, we now have States that are not making any genuine efforts in putting policies in place, or taking concrete actions to generate wealth for the States’ up keep and development. All they do is to just wait for the Federal allocation of oil and gas money, which must come to them to be shared, no qualms.
In an organized developed society in Europe and America, the Governments depend on taxation to generate wealth. They create the necessary and conducive atmosphere to generate wealth for the upkeep of the States and Councils, and not just sit down and wait for monthly allocations like we see in Nigeria. And because of the insincerity, untrustworthy disposition of Nigerian political leaders at all levels of Government, the Nigerian tax system cannot be relied upon to drive any change like we see overseas. For instance, who will readily pay tax in Nigeria which will be misused/misappropriated by one State governor and its lawmakers? Of course, no one would like to be cheated/extorted by the Government in the name of tax. Nobody will like to be extorted by the government of the day. That is what you will get when the State Governments are only good at collecting all kinds of tax/levies without any element of accountability and usage of such funds for development. Take Delta State for instance, where almost all the networks of roads are in a bad state. No regular power supply, no portable water, no street lights, no good drainage system, no wastes collection/proper disposal of wastes by any government body – be it State or Local Governments, no access to good healthcare, no government-driven sanitation in public places like markets, where the gutters are filled/blocked with all kinds of wastes, no guaranteed security – as such – kidnapping and armed robbery have been on the increase, etc
With all of this, the question now is who would like to be robbed and be willing to be extorted by the State Governments in the name of taxation? The Nigerian public will only be happy to readily pay tax if the tax money is judiciously used by the Executive Government for the public’s benefit. But in this case, the extortions called taxes are shared by the politicians in power in every State. Agreed that there are some few development-friendly State Governors like those in Lagos and Rivers and Anambra States, but there are more insensitive State Governors than good governors across the country. The problem of accountability and weak check and balances is our worst undoing.
Just look at the height of payment enjoyed by Nigerian legislators right from the National Assembly down to the States’ Assemblies. Who would like to be paying taxes that will end up in the pockets of these insensitive legislators which they share in the name of receiving salaries and allowances? All these are issues that needs to be addressed for us to have a taxation system favorable to all. The over bloated Executive arm of government with their numerous tentacles of arranged portfolios with all sorts of names as Personal-One-Thing-Or-Other, and their established frivolous Boards of One-Thing-Or-Other are all avenues through which public tax money are wasted/misappropriated. All of this must be stopped for there to be a headway.
The bottom line is that the State Governors should change their mentality of depending on the Federal Government to deliver any element of development in their domain. When we have State Governors who collect allocations with nothing to show for it, we must task such Governors and their Council Chairmen to deliver good governance. They can indeed improve on their current efforts specifically if the Federal Government stops interference in State matters. If States are independent, there will be competition and we will see some overall development. All our States are blessed with different natural resources. It is the responsibility of the Governors to help tackle all development challenges facing Nigerians. Issues of varying visions, different political manifestos, and mis-management of public funds and delayed release of money meant for the local Governments cannot help development. Any Governor who fails to deliver should be shamed and impeached is possible. Accountability and probity must be watchwords for good governance.
Zik Gbemre, JP.
National Coordinator
Niger Delta Peace Coalition (NDPC)
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