Barley a month to the end of his tenure, state governors have resolved to meet with President Muhammadu Buhari on new revenue formula for the country.
The current sharing formula gives the Federal Government 52.68 per cent of collectable monthly revenue, the 36 states, 26.72 per cent while the 774 local government areas will share 20.60 per cent.
Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), according to Chairman of the commission Mohammed Bello Shehu, is proposing a horizontal revenue allocation formula among the second and third tiers of government.
State governors who met Wednesday night, discussed the new revenue formula submitted to the president, and resolved to meet with him on the matter.
Outgoing Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), the umbrella body of the Nigeria governors Aminu Waziri Tambuwal who spoke to journalists after the meeting, said the state chief executives considered “the need for us to approach Mr. President on the need for him to present the new draft formula to the National Assembly before this administration winds up.
“We are going to meet with Mr. President as a forum and we will appeal to him to present that formula to the National Assembly.”
Tambuwal who is also outgoing governor of Sokoto, disclosed that the meeting equally discussed the guidelines by the Nigeria Financial Intelligent Unit (NFIU), on financial regulation on how to ensure that Nigeria is taking out of the grey list of the financial taskforce.
“We also discussed the issue of primary healthcare and the progress made so far during our induction course. Some states that have attained some milestones are going to receive awards for their performance,” the governor added.
According to him, the issue of stamp duties being owed to both the Federal Government and the states, which is warehoused by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), featured during the meeting, stating that the governors are working to make sure that it is released for disbursement to both the federal and state governments.
Tambuwal praised the forum, and expressed the belief that a lot of achievements have been made since its establishment, “particularly as we made sure that we maintain unity, cohesion, the non-partisanship of this platform and making sure that in all that we do, it is about Nigeria first, and of course, our various states.”
About 20 state governors and two deputies, attended the meeting. Uban Sani, governor-elect of Kaduna State, who accompanied his outgoing predecessor Mallm Nasir el-Rufai, left before the meeting went into closed door session.
