NaijaAgroNet:
The Governor of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf
Aregbesola and his Oyo State counterpart, Senator Abiola Ajimobi have urged
Nigerians to see agriculture as a better alternative to oil in the
resuscitation of the country's ailing economy.
The Governors stated this in their separate speeches during the seventh Annual
Lecture of Nigeria Association of Muslim Law Students of Obafemi Awolowo
University, Ile-Ife, Osun.
The duo noted that agriculture remains the largest employer of labour hence the
need for individuals and government at all levels to encourage agriculture in a
bid to revamp the dwindling economic fortune of Nigeria.
Aregbesola said since oil has been selling for less than $40 for the past
months, it is quite predictable that the figures for November, when it is
ready, would have dropped again.
The Governor comparing the present situation when Osun collected N55.8 million
to 2013 when the average money distributed to states from the federation
accounts was in excess of N800 billion, said Osun’s average allocation then was
N3.6 billion.
According to him, "While our monthly wage bill is N3.6billion, the highest
amount we have received this year alone was N2.1 billion. It went as low as
N466 million in April while the figure for September was N55 million.
"Don’t think this is a problem for the states alone. The Federal
Government under the last PDP administration had to borrow N476 billion from
commercial banks to pay salaries of some of its workers (not all) for the last
four months of that better forgotten tenure.”
Governor Ajimobi who was the Guest Speaker spoke on a topic titled "State
Financing and Over-dependence on Oil: Issues and challenges"
identified a number of factors responsible for the on-going financial
crisis in the country.
He called for true federalism as being practiced in advanced countries of the
world, saying it is abnormal in any true federalism for any tier to be
financially incapacitated as being experienced in the country.
Ajimobi stated that out of the 36 states in the federal structure, not as many
as five could survive without federal allocation, saying apart from Rivers,
Lagos, Enugu, Delta, Katsina, Akwa Ibom, Ebonyi and Bayelsa State, which have
tried to balance their budgets since creation, all the other States have had to
depend more on Federal Government for survival.
He said, "Ordinarily, states are supposed to make use of their Internally
Generated Revenue (IGR) for recurrent expenditure while statutory allocations
are to take care of capital expenditure; but the reverse is pathetically the
case currently.
"The current scenario whereby IGR and statutory allocation combined are
not sufficiently for states to meet their financial obligations is indeed
unfortunate. This has resorted to a situation whereby most states cannot
generate the required funds needed to pay workers' salaries.
"Government at the centre is currently assigned 52.68 percent of
Federation Account revenues, including 7.5 percent of the account originally
earmarked for "Special" projects like the development of the Federal
Capital Territory and the amelioration of national ecological emergencies.
"The state and the localities, on the other hand, respectively get 26.72
and 20.60 percent of Federation Account revenues. Nonetheless, over-dependence
on oil has made nonsense of this Allocation Formula and what is allocated to
each tier except the Federal Government.
"The problem of this heavy dependence on the oil sector, started as far
back as 1992 when global crude oil prices started fluctuating from $18.4 to $61
per barrel in 2006 and reached $115.05 per barrel by June 2014. Beyond these
latent facts, bureaucratic and political corruption combined have crippled a
number of states financially" he lamented.
Ajimobi said the agricultural sector that has been neglected for long on what
he described as "black gold" should be revamped to enhance food
security, reduce importation of food items and engage able-bodied citizens who
are presently either out rightly unemployed or under-employed.
He implored the students to imbibe the spirit of positive leadership qualities
by joining the train of development as they explore technology positively to
advance in the current and future world.
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