States Should Determine Salaries, Allowances Of Officials, Akeredolu Tells RMAFC

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Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu has asked the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation And Fiscal Commission( NRMAFC), to allow every state of the federation to determine the salaries and allowances of its officials.
Akeredolu said the current practice of fixing salaries and allowances of public officials to reflect uniformity in a polity, which prides itself as federal, appears odd.
Speaking as a special guest at the zonal public hearing on the review of the 2008 Remuneration Package for political, public, and judicial office holders in Nigeria, the governor pointedly said, “Let the states control their resources and pay tax to the centre.”
At the event held at Adegbemile Hall in Akure, the Ondo State capital, Akeredolu said the “logic of mopping up revenues accruable to states and local governments into a general pool for sharing, by some opaque formulas, is anachronistic and retrogressive in a country with a fast-growing heterogeneous population.”
According to him, ” The system which allows a very strong central government and weak dependencies is not capable of development. It will be much more profitable for the Federal Government to dissipate less energy in its pursuit of the misnomer touted as local government autonomy.
“The country is encumbered not only by the very facts which account for her emergence as an amalgam of ethnic nationalities forced into a political union for colonial benefits and administrative expediency.”
Governor Akeredolu noted that most Nigerians participating in the public hearing will conclude, hastily, that its purpose was self-serving and highly insensitive to the plight of the ordinary people.
The governor who further stated that the mere knowledge that humongous budgetary allocations are appropriated as recurrent expenditure in a country, noted that the struggle with issues of development, is perennially unsettling.
While saying it is not sufficient for the commission to regulate the salaries of public officials, Akeredolu stressed the need to reduce the overbearing influence of the federal government and its institutions on the constituent units to encourage development.

He however challenged Nigerians to be resolute in challenging the present structural defects which stifle the growth of the country.
His words: “As we march towards nationhood as a people of manifest fortunate destiny, we must fashion practicable ways to get out of the current doldrums.
“A negligible fraction engaged to serve the populace gobbles a disproportionate part of the Commonwealth. Ordinary Nigerians are, justifiably, vehement about the need to tinker with the current structure to allow the real creation of wealth rather than concentrate all attention on how to share it.
“The autonomy of the States has been eroded greatly. The Houses of Assembly have been relegated to the fringe in the affairs of their respective States. Revenue generation is the bedrock of fiscal policies. Local economies should be allowed to flower.
“The appropriation of the sources of wealth of various States by agencies of the Federal Government is the fundamental reason for retardation.
“Our recent pre-independence history, and immediately after it, depicts the immense potentialities present in the various regions and the manner through which the political leaders availed themselves of them.
“The level of development attained in all these semi-autonomous political entities points to the possibilities of attaining greatness if the current structure is tinkered with to reflect true federalism. It is on record that public officials in the defunct South Western Region were the highest paid in the country.”
Akeredolu further said that the challenges encountered by the nascent Republic led to crises in different parts of the country, especially the South West and the Middle Belt. He noted that the incursion of the military into the political affairs of the country engendered a devastating effect on the country.
According to him, “The promulgation of Decree No. 34 of 1966, which abolished the Regions and replaced them with the so-called Provinces, laid the foundation for the erosion of values and determination to excel through healthy rivalries which existed among them.
“The creation of 12 States out of these artificial entities, erroneously called Provinces by the military, to defeat the secessionists, ensuring the perpetuation of the policies which militated against the ability of the erstwhile upwardly mobile socio-political entities to be creative.
“The oil boom of the early 70s encouraged redundancy, progressively. The discovery of oil, the reason for the remarkable progress of other countries, has thus become a huge curse on the land. Only those who benefit from this current dysfunction will want it to continue.”
The country continues to pretend that all is well when it is dithering on the brink of collapse. All patriots must be resolute in challenging the present structural defects which stifle growth.