– They must account for huge financial inflows from FAAC
Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja
President of Global Legislators Organisation for A Balanced Environment (GLOBE Legislators International), Hon. Sam Onuigbo, has urged Nigerians to hold state governors responsible for the economic hardship in the country despite the huge financial inflows accruing to them from the removal of petroleum subsidy.
Onuigbo who stated this on Sunday in Abuja in a chat with newsmen regretted that most of the state governors failed to reciprocate President Bola Tinubu’s liberal fiscal reforms.
He noted that since President Tinubu has done his part in funneling a greater percentage of the revenue accruing from the subsidy removal, state governors should be equally magnanimous in allowing the Local Government Councils to receive their due share.
It could be recalled that while speaking when he received a delegation of the Renewed Hope Ambassadors in Lafia, the state capital, Governor Abdullahi Sule had noted that Nasarawa State’s share from the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) increased from an average of between N3.8billion and N4.5 billion before the subsidy removal to around N14billion to N16 billion currently.
According to him, with the removal of subsidy today, I can tell you for free, Nasarawa State is receiving an average of N14bn to N16bn every month.
Onuigbo, who is also a former Finance Commissioner in Abia State, lamented that while the federal government gets 52.68 per cent, the state governors have been receiving 47.32 per cent revenue from the FAAC without allowing the councils to access the 20.60 per cent that should constitutionally go to them.
He noted: “Governors are no longer running around in search of funds to pay salaries. We are also looking at a situation, where resources meant for the local government are made available to them to pursue agriculture, so that citizens at the rural level can now engage in productive activities.
“When you talk about agriculture, or constructing culverts and tarring of rural roads, you recognise that once the local governments have these resources they would also be able to identify individuals that have the potential to cause trouble.
“The challenges they cannot handle escalate up to the state level or federal agencies like DSS (Department of State Security).
“We hope to see a situation where the president is commended for this impetus through the collaborative efforts of the officials at the subnational level so that we see development. One of the speakers spoke on what was happening within the regions in the first republic.”
The former member of the House of Representatives said that next year’s election means a lot to Nigeria, stressing that re-electing President Tinubu would avert the possibility of policy somersaults that could pull back the gains already recorded.