Osita Okechukwu is a former Director-General of Voice of Nigeria and a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC). In this interview, he speaks on issues concerning revenue sharing and autonomy for the local governments, EVINCE UHUREBOR writes

What is your take on the proposed review of the revenue sharing formula?

Let me start by thanking the Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission. Luckily for us, there are two items on the table. One was very mind-blowing to me; that is the increase of political office holders’ salaries. But I can imagine Nigerian Labour Congress and others, they hooked up to that but they forgot the main ingredient in the soup, which is review of the formula.

In my years in politics, I’ve discovered that the major issue of contention in Nigeria is that the centre is so huge. Both the military coups, the desperation for who is at the presidency, manipulation of presidential election results over the years and annulment of MKO Abiola’s election, were centred on the fact that we have an unbalance federalism.

And luckily for us, the Revenue Commission came at a time when there is an ongoing constitutional amendment. So, I’m saying that we should all join forces to get the Federal Government to reduce from 52 per cent to 40 per cent for federal, also 40 per cent to the states and 10 for local governments. The remaining 10 per cent for ecology, natural resources, social needs and others.

I’m saying so because we’re now heading to 2027 elections and you rarely hear any noise about who goes to Senate from Enugu or from Sokoto or from Ekiti State or Calabar. I’m thinking of the day Nigerian people will know that the governor of a state is presiding over 40 per cent of their funds, and that the governor has also hijacked the local councils. Efforts have made in the last 25 to 26 years through various amendments by each session of the National but the issue of local government failed.

But President Bola Tinubu, in his own wisdom as a veteran who fought local government war, initiated a programme and went to the Supreme Court. Luckily, his Attorney General, Lateef Fagbemi, did so well and the Supreme Court gave judgement.

How enforceable is the judgement that granted financial autonomy to the local governments?

When that judgement came, we all jumped up in jubilation but the governors connived. Why they did so; I don’t know. But let us not take it for granted that in our federation that the governors are in charge of the local governments.

The day people are sure that their governors are controlling over 50 per cent of our funds, the noise in Abuja will be very, very minimal and the do-or-die election for presidency or Nigeria voting over N300 billion for an election, and getting almost no perfect election will come to an end.

Is it about being in tune with current realities, or is it a problem of operators of the system?

Both sides; but let me start with the fact that there have been amendments that have been done, one of which is the Fifth Amendment by former President Muhammadu Buhari, where the state governments have been allowed to generate electricity. If possible, transmit and distribute. If you don’t fund them, if you don’t leave them with more funds, how will that be executed?

So, I’m saying, Nigerians are giving them more responsibilities, give them more money. Look at the governor of Enugu State, for instance, he’s taxing people, and we protested. He said, gentlemen, can you do an assessment and have a timeline? If you don’t see what

I’m thinking of the day Nigerian people will know that the governor of a state is presiding over 40 per cent of their funds and that the governor has also hijacked the local councils

What do you think the governors will do with increased allocation? I don’t know when you got to your village last. If you have been there recently, did they tell you that the hardship is about President Tinubu?

Are they aware that Mr. President is dishing out more allocation to them more than any other previous government? The truth of the matter is that President Tinubu has done so well in that line. Now, that he’s doing so, some people are even querying it. The idea of democracy is popular participation. It’s more difficult to canvas an issue at the centre.

You know why? They will tell you: ‘The man is our tribesman, do you know when we’ll get that again. Even if they are stealing, for God’s sake, let him join in the stealing.’ That’s the danger we face because we have two big elephants in the room – ethnicity and religion. We have not wiped it off. But when resources are close to the units, the ethnic card will be demolished.

The President will go freely and tell the people; this is the allocation formula from all that came from the so called national cake. This is what their people got. For me, the balanced federalism is seamless via fiscal restructuring than where you now say, we are going to the old region as if the region succeeded.

Looking at this issue of revenue allocation, should we be looking at allocation or should we be talking about derivation? Like what happened in the First Republic. Why is it difficult to canvass derivation?

There’s what they call the Dutch disease. That happened in areas that got oil before us. You are not Shell BP; you are not Exxon Mobil. Few of your people work there. They drill the oil, they sell, they return you the proceeds. Don’t forget, there are presidents that passed through this country that complained that their problem is what to do with money.

So, the so-called national cake is about oil revenue. I’m happy with what my friend Dele Alake is doing in the Ministry of Solid Minerals. Maybe, he might excite us and let us know that there are also big funds there. In agriculture, where we know there are big funds, we abandoned it.

So, if we talk about derivation, a product is part of the renewable energy and others. What is the fight in Russia and Ukraine about? It’s about the same matter. The Black Sea, you know, and what they call the fortress that Putin is trying to hijack with President Donald Trump and others. It’s a very rich oil wealth and deposits.

There are countries where their export in agriculture brings more than what we have. Exxon Mobil, for instance, used to be the top dog in terms of value of any company on earth. But suddenly, FinTech, Apple, Google, they came to the top of one trillion value before Exxon Mobil. They have few staff, but ideas.

Some of them are managed by very few people. But they have out-passed ExxonMobil, out-passed Shell BP. So, we must be looking at funding education so that we have good talents in Nigeria.

When you hear they are doing Yahoo Yahoo; that tells you that if you train them well, they can also discover one application or the other that can lead them to somewhere. But if you talk of derivation, don’t forget that the civil war was fought about oil.

The Biafran-Nigeria Civil War was about oil. Even as we speak in Nigeria, some states are even receiving from the derivation formula, those who have oil on their ground.

There are also questions as to how far the governments have been to better the lives of their people…

It’s unfortunate because I remember talking with some of them who are my friends. I said, with these huge funds coming your way, the East-West road, an artery road that passes through all the Niger Delta, is getting to 20 years and it remains uncompleted. So, it’s unfortunate but I don’t want to go there.

In some cases, there’s also this argument about whether the road is a federal road or a state road and all of that. These are some of the arguments you also see in some states on why they don’t delve into the road infrastructure you talked about…

That’s why I’m saying. If you can use the revenue allocation formula to push more resources back to the units, they won’t have anybody to blame.

I don’t want to mention names; President Johnathan presided over this country for over five years. Did he complete the East-West road? Our problem is that we have not started blaming ourselves. Why do you think there is nepotism? It is because the centre is heavy.

If you elect me tomorrow, for instance, the people will line up and say, we have to be in charge of finance, we have to be in charge of this one or that one.

But if you reduce the centre, it won’t be so any longer because the military, the police, civil defence and others will consume the 40 per cent there. The centre has no business again to do all these.

The units will do that. They are with the people. If the people decide that they should lavish their funds, there will not be crisis in the country at the centre. There won’t be instability. It will be localised.

Let me also bring in something here that has plagued the allocation of revenue over the years in Nigeria. There are states that have laws against the consumption of alcohol and alcoholic beverages. Yet these alcoholic beverages generate a very huge chunk of the Value Added Tax (VAT). What is your take on that?

How many states are taxing for alcohol? They are very few. I told one of my friends who went for a function with me and he saw me groping there.

He said Osita, what’s this about? I said, if you are born somewhere else, you might be an alcoholic. If I was born in Funtua, I would be a Muslim because you did not join the religion because of your choice; it’s where your parents took you the next morning. So, let’s leave that. That’s not our problem.

But it is already jumping into national issues…

It doesn’t need to. Bring down the resources to the units. Don’t hang on it because you want to dispense, and tomorrow, you take more than a billion ecological fund this day go and do health contract. Reduce it. If you reduce it, the atmosphere will calm down. That’s my position.

There are people who argue that the local councils should even get more because they are the government that is closer to the people and the fact that they are not even getting the one allocated to them at this time is part of why we are having this degeneration of roads within communities. Wouldn’t this also be in variance with what people have been saying over the years?

What I’m saying is that we are in the 10th session of the national and state assemblies, and each session, if you remember, embarked on a constitutional amendment and in each of those sessions, this issue of local government autonomy had been on the table. President Tinubu was a witness to it and he came to power and had an intuition like ‘let’s go through the legal process’.

So, he called his Attorney General and they presented the matter to the Supreme Court, with all the Attorneys General of the 36 states on one side versus the Attorney General of the Federation and as God will have it, on July 11, 2024 the Supreme Court’s landmark judgement was delivered and we jubilated.

As I said, I don’t know what happened behind the closed doors, whether it has been implemented. If what I have learnt over the years since I don’t have foresight I live in hindsight and it is such and such that you look at possibilities and impossibilities. It has become impossible to retrieve local councils from emperor governors. When something becomes impossible for me, I look for the possibilities.