Pages: 50-66

Abstract

A large number of states in Nigeria are running on avoidable deficits due to overdependence on centrally allocated crude-oil dependent revenues. Many of the state governments came into power with the mindset of getting monthly allocation from the federation account but the decline in the oil price and the lingering slowdown due to destruction of oil pipeline and installations by militants and vandals have dashed many hopes. Unpaid salaries, uncompleted and abandoned projects and many socio-economic and political challenges are facing governments due to paucity of funds. Even though there had been uneasy silence about how the nation’s wealth is being shared among all tiers of government before now, the latest outcry, appears to have polarised Nigeria along regional lines. With the controversy over a more acceptable revenue sharing formula causing a ‘war’ of words among the various tiers of governments, this paper dismisses any adoption of any new sharing formula for the federating states among other measures. This paper posits that the answer is the diversification of the Nigerian economy and resource governance accountability and transparency.