When a government is confronted with daunting challenges in its attempts to stimulate the economy, such a government, state or national, has as foremost the issue of funds; i.e. raising funds for the government activities on one hand, and, so close to it, empathy for the plights of the people they govern. This requires a great balance and greater sense to do the right thing. To foster economic growth, it is given that there should be sufficient revenue generation. But more importantly, there should be real work in creating job opportunities, and the improvement of the people’s well-being – and these shouldn’t be hope deferred which will always make the heart weary but a goal to be delivered or accomplished in a timely manner. Why should this be so? It is clear (perhaps not to politicians in governance) that life has expiry date and should not be wasted.
In the light of the above, a government needs key strategies to stimulate its economy (especially when it is known to all that such an economy had been dead and it is to be reawakened). While working on infrastructure development, there are surefire ways to stimulate an economy. This include supports for local businesses to ensure that money continue to circulate among people to sustain patronages, tapping into full potentials in areas of comparative advantages, for instance, tourism and/or agriculture where plausible; giving incentives for business development (such as tax breaks, grants, financial perks for MSMEs, and ensuring creation of conducive environment for businesses to thrive); absolute support for entrepreneurship, capacity development in terms of skills acquisition (both technical and managerial); encourage collaboration opportunities instead of individualism that leads to nothing or poor business results, to mention but few. The benefits of this cannot be over-emphasised.
Though a government needs tax (i.e. money contributions from the people) to run its affairs but government must first enable the tax payers for the tax payers to be in good position to pay with ease. You cannot tax nothing; and you cannot force to get from the people what is not available.
According to World Economic Forum (quoting Oxfam report), job losses and other hardships have been disproportionately concentrated amongst the poor, the youth, and the women. But in Nigeria, the men were not insulated against the poverty pandemic. As a result, the total number of people in extreme poverty keep rising. This is true about Nigeria; but it is expected that the pinnacle of it had been reached and we should be experiencing the downward slope of the curve. However, we must find out how serious the federal government and the states and, by extension, the local governments have been going about alleviating poverty among Nigerians, especially since the 2023 damning but necessary subsidy removal had happened.
According to report, the federal, 36 states and 774 local government areas have been receiving increasing monthly allocation since the removal of fuel subsidy. According to report, there was a 55.5 per cent increase (N6.16 trillion in 2023), above the N4.79 trillion received in 2022. In 2024, the 36 states and 774 local governments received a combined N9.58 trillion from FAAC. This jumbo inflow had led to the federal and state governments improving their debt repayment obligations and reducing their debts, through the leverage enjoyed with the increase in monthly disbursements from the federation account allocation committee (FAAC). According to National Orientation Agency (NOA), an agency of federal government, the revenue increase in 2024 came from a larger N15.26 trillion pool distributed among the three tiers of government, driven by improved oil receipts and better tax collection.
The question begging for an urgent answer is that despite this significant increase in monthly allocation by the three tiers of government, what efforts are being made by the governments to really cushion the effects of the harsh economic decisions of the government. Where is the money is the song on the lips of millions of people in Nigeria. How is the federal and states governments truly responding to improve the wellbeing of the masses? So far this far, the palliative measures or conditional cash transfers have had zero impacts. Even the CNG alternative to PMS usage has had no bearing in bringing down transport fares being paid by transporters. With all the noises and efforts being put into commercial vehicles CNG conversion, there is no corresponding lesser transport fares charge.
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Will the costs of living driven up by the twin policies ever come down or Nigerians should address their minds to the fact that once prices go up in Nigeria it will never come down again? What we witness today is higher monthly allocation; but the governments’ actions are having no positive effects on people’s standards of living yet. Nigerians must ask, ‘why are all the supposed efforts not trickling down to the people? What is government doing to ensure this more money translate to improved value and better purchasing powers for the people? In answering these questions, I hope no government official will come up to play the ostrich that they are working on roads and other capital projects because this shouldn’t be at the expense of the immediate wellbeing of the people they are governing. And I hope no one will come up with the excuse of current value of Naira and the need to review project costs. More money shouldn’t be chasing capital projects in a way that Nigerians will be suspecting misappropriation of allocated funds. Neither should Nigerians believe that institutional corruption is standing between them and good life.
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