DEMOCRACY AND THE QUEST FOR ACCEPTABLE REVENUE SHARING FORMULA IN NIGERIA

Abstract

This study interrogated the interface between democracy and the agitation for an acceptable revenue formula in Nigeria. We examined the various revenue sharing formula and the inherent heated continuous debate associated with it. We relied on documentary and survey source for data collection, content analysis and percentages for data analysis, relative deprivation, rising expectation and frustration aggression model as our theoretical framework. Our findings were that the argument and debate on revenue sharing formula is between the federal government and the southsouth particularly the oil producing states who complained bitterly of the environmental hazards suffered by their region, we also discovered that most people from the north are not in support of resource control while their southern counterpart grossly support it, thereby leading to a stalemate. Despite the plethora of committee and commissions setup by the federal government to tackle the problems ranging from Philipson commission of 1946, Hick-Philipson commission of 1951 to Armed Forces Ruling Council (AFRC) 1992 and even to the present day the problem is yet to be solved. We recommended among others that the argument on revenue sharing formula should be based on the nation’s socio-economic needs rather than the interest of a given geopolitical region. The federal government should stop focusing her tentacle only on distributive but productive politics. They should think of what to do to increase the revenue of the country or at least provide enabling environment for the increase of the wealth of our nation which is the essence of political economy. Division of the country is not the only solution to Nigeria hydraheaded calamities, rather the federal government should through the Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), increase the percentage of revenue accruing to the oil producing states in the south on account of the heavy and almost irreversible ecological damages suffered by these states. In as much as we recommend that the federal government should review the allocation to oil producing states upward; the governors must renew and restructure their minds to make sure that money allocated to their states are judiciously utilized.