Faulty federalism causes dependency on oil –Gbajabiamila

Minority Leader of the House, Mr. Femi Gbajabiamila

Minority Leader in the House of Representatives, Mr. Femi Gbajabiamila, said on Thursday that Nigeria’s over-dependency on oil was caused by the fault in its federal system.

Gbajabiamila said Nigeria in reality was still running a unitary system of government, which he said was the reason why its only source of revenue was oil.

“There is a relationship between the structure of government and our revenue base. We are still practicing unitary system, because in unitary system, we have only one source of income which is petroleum,” he said. He spoke in Lagos at the 2nd Anniversary and Annual Lecture organised by ‘January 9 Collective.’ JC9 is a group of young professionals, whose focus is to uphold accountable, open and good governance in the country. It derived its name and aim from the 2012 mass protests against removal of fuel subsidy, which commenced on January 9, 2012.

 The event, with the theme, ‘Nigeria, beyond petrodollar – A realistic perspective,’ was attended by professionals from the media, entertainment, politics and ICT, among others.

Gbajabiamila, who delivered the keynote address, said true fiscal federalism would enable the different federating units to be autonomous and by so doing enable them to explore other sources of revenue.

He added that the excuse of the Federal Government about its inability to finance the budget because of oil theft was the more reason why over-reliance on oil portended great danger for the nation in future. The lawmaker, who described the oil benchmark system adopted in the nation’s budgets as illegal and unconstitutional, said state governments were being shortchanged by the Federal Government by putting part of the oil revenue in an “illegal” Excess Crude Oil Account.

“It is the Federal Government’s way of getting around appropriation,” he said.

Gbajabiamila said agriculture was a viable alternative which Nigeria could explore to broaden its revenue base.

“On the issue of agriculture, in the last three years when considering the national budget, I did not remember if any proposal came from that ministry official, I think in many cases we have added to that proposal because we understand that the problems and the need to broaden our revenue base in Nigeria,” he said.

Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr. Aminu Tambuwal, who was said to be on a trip to France, was originally scheduled to deliver the keynote address. Gbajabiamila’s position was supported by broadcaster and activist, Funmi Iyanda, who called for a return to true federalism, under which each region strived to develop and generate its revenue from various non-oil sectors.

One of the guest lecturers, who is also the Chief Executive Officer of Economic Associate, Dr. Ayo Teriba, described Nigeria’s economy as cyclical because of its dependency on global economy. He said the country had a lot to gain by focusing on other non-oil revenue sources.

Another lecturer, who is the Executive Chairman of the Lagos State Internal Revenue Service, Mr. Babatunde Fowler, said there was great danger ahead of states that were relying solely on shares from federal allocation.