Plateau State’s Governor Caleb Muftwang has punctured claims by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who has boasted in a nationwide broadcast on Sunday that government revenue has increased since he took over power on May 29, 2023.
Tinubu made the boast in the Sunday broadcast as a response to ongoing nationwide protests against hunger and economic hardship.
Bursting the President’s bubble, the Governor of the North-Central state said that although the monthly federal allocation disbursed to state governments had indeed risen, the purchasing power and the real value of the money allocated had “decreased significantly” due to the inflationary pressure on the economy and the wobbling naira.
Tinubu said that money saved from removal of fuel subsidy was used to mark up monthly allocations from the Federation account to states to enable them address the hardship Nigerians were currently facing.
Reacting to the President’s claim in an interview with Channels Television’s breakfast programme, Sunrise Daily, on Wednesday, Muftwang said: “It is true that in terms of amount, it (allocation) has actually increased but in terms of purchasing power, in terms of real value, it has decreased very significantly.”
However, he cited the examples of the prices of diesel, cement, iron rods and other materials used for the construction of critical infrastructure that had increased.
Muftwang submitted: “Therefore, we shouldn’t just look at the amount, let’s look at the purchasing power of the amount that the state has so far received from the federation account.
“It doesn’t need any rocket science. When the last administration came in 2015, the dollar exchanged to about N180 to the naira. Today, you are telling me that money has increased but all of us know the value of the naira to the dollar.
“We are still a consumer nation; many of the things we are using in governance are imported and so they are dollar-denominated.”
According to the subsisting revenue formula, the Federal Government gets a total of 52.68 percent, states get 26.72 percent while LGs get 20.60 percent of the country’s monthly revenue allocated by the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), which operates under the Presidency.
The allocations are subsequently disbursed to the three-tier stakeholders by the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC).
Protesters in the nationwide protest have persistently asked the President to reverse the removal of fuel subsidy, blaming if for the hardship in the country.
They point out that the sudden removal of the fuel subsidy and other policies instantly shot up inflation to over 34 percent, with food inflation standing at over 40 percent.
