A former Director General of the Voice of Nigeria (VON) and member of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr. Osita Okechukwu, has backed the proposed review of the revenue allocation formula by the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC).
Okechukwu gave his backing in Enugu on Tuesday, while addressing journalists a few hours after the Chairman of the RMAFC, Mohammed Shehu, announced plans to review the revenue allocation formula.
He said that he was totally in support of the proposed review of the existing revenue allocation formula as “it is long overdue”, especially now that the constitution is being altered by the National Assembly.
Okechukwu canvassed for the reduction in the huge extant revenue allocated to the federal government from 52 percent to 40 percent, to guarantee a balanced federalism.
This, he said, would enhance the progress and prosperity of the citizenry, albeit ultimately advancing the frontiers of grassroots democracy.
“My observation over the last decades informed that the political banditry, ultra-nepotism, and tension-soaked presidential election in our dear fatherland is largely due to unbalanced federalism.
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“An unbalanced federalism is an outlier of the do-or-die struggle of who presides over the huge oil revenue at the over-centralised federal government.
“And I agree wholeheartedly with Shehu’s submission that the review of the vertical revenue-sharing formula, which determines how federally collected revenues are shared among the federal, state, and local governments, has been long overdue,” he said.
Okechukwu said that the 33-year-old revenue formula is antithetical to development and is retrogressive.
He therefore proposed a new revenue sharing formula of 40 percent to the federal government, 40 percent to state governments, 10 percent to local governments, and the remaining 10 percent to be shared among the Federal Capital Territory and others.
He noted that the local governments’ allocation should be reduced since all genuine efforts made in the last 25 years to retrieve local government administration from the stranglehold of governors had repeatedly failed.
“Even the financial autonomy initiative by President Bola Tinubu, which culminated in the July 11, 2024, Supreme Court landmark judgment, had failed woefully; it has become imperative to stop chasing shadows,” Okechukwu said.
