Governors to Meet Buhari over RMAFC’s New Revenue Formula

*Want draft passed into law before May 29 

*Deliberate on the NFIU guidelines on disbursement, security votes

Chuks Okocha in Abuja

After over four hours meeting, the 36 States governors resolved to meet President Muhammadu Buhari to prevail on him to send the new revenue formula to the National Assembly.
Under the old formula, the federal government gets 52.68 per cent, the 36 states share 26.72 per cent, while the 774 local government areas in the country share 20.60 per cent every month.

However, the new proposal seeks a 3.33 per cent reduction in the current federal government allocation and on the other hand an increase of 3.07 per cent and 0.44 per cent for the states and local governments. It also seeks an increase 0.2 per cent for the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and a decrease of 0.38 per cent for Development of Natural Resources.

Speaking to news men in the early hours of Thursday, Governor Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto State, that the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) has submitted the draft of the new revenue formula allocation for the approval of the 36 state governments.
The chairman said the meeting discussed the National Financial Intelligent Unit (NFIU) guidelines.
In the last meeting held before yesterday, the governors had deliberated on the NFIU guidelines on security votes. They had argued that all security votes should be domiciled at the Central Bank of Nigeria and no longer the commercial banks.

Giving details of the meeting, the chairman of the Nigeria Governors Forum, said: “It’s nothing unusual, it’s the normal meeting of Governors where we discuss issues concerning the country, the sub-national and of course democracy and Good governance.
“But today, we’ve discussed about the guidelines, about the NFIU about financial regulations that it’s working on, and how to ensure that Nigeria is taking out of the grey list of the Financial Task Force.

“And we also discussed about the primary healthcare and progress made so far.
“During our induction course, some states that have attained some milestones are going to receive some awards for their performance.
“And we also discussed about the new revenue formular submitted to Mr. President by RMAFC and the need to really approach Mr. President on the need to present the new draft formular to the National Assembly before this administration winds up.
“We also discussed issue about the stamp duties that are being owed to both the federal government and the states that is warehoused in the central bank and we are working to make sure that that is being released for disbursement to both federal government and the states. So these are some of the issues we have discussed,” he said.

When asked about the details of the new draft revenue formula and whether the governors were satisfied with the RMAFC work, Tambuwal said: “We are going to meet Mr. President as the leadership of the Forum and we will appeal to him to present that draft revenue formula.
“By the time it’s presented, you’ll see what is there.”
In his assessment of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, Tambuwal noted that as an institution established to promote good governance, the Forum has performed creditably well.

“For me, as a Forum and an institution of governors that we inherited from our former leaders, past governors, I believe that a lot of achievements have been made particularly in making sure that we maintain the cohesion and the unity of governors, the non-partisanship of this platform and making sure that in all that we do, it’s all about Nigeria first and then our various states.”
While noting that the fifth meeting of the Forum in 2023, was attended by only the serving governors, he maintained that the Forum has been able to bring all the 36 State Governors together, “working for national interest, for the interests of the States, and making sure that there’s that unity among Governors on national issues. I believe NGF has done very well.”