By Patrick Atuanya & Bala Augie
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) last week released some interesting data set on the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) profiles for Nigeria’s 36 states between 2010 and 2012.
At a first glance, the data was not surprising as states in southern Nigeria continue to show dominance in terms of economic activity.
The oil producing states also featured prominently in the top ten in terms of states with the largest share of IGR.
Northern Nigeria’s poor showing continues to be a concern. Eight of the least ten states in terms of IGR are from Northern Nigeria, including Yobe and Borno which are mostly bearing the brunt of the current insurgency, while none feature in the top ten.
Source: BusinessDay Research, NBS
- Lagos State, Nigeria’s commercial capital leads the pack for IGR by a wide margin, while Yobe has the least for 2012. While Lagos is 7 times more populated than Yobe, Its N219.2 billion of IGR in 2012 is 123 times that of Yobe State’s IGR of N1.78 billion.
- Nigeria’s oil producing states are ramping up their capacity for IGR, perhaps due to the increased economic activity that oil and gas production provides. Five of the top ten states with the highest IGR are oil producers, including Rivers, Delta, Edo, Akwa Ibom and Cross River.
- When we analysed the data to see the regional champions it showed that for the SW region Lagos led with N219.2 billion, SS: Rivers N66.2 billion, SE: Ebonyi N14 billion, NC: Benue N8.4 billion, NW: Kaduna N11.5 billion, and NE: Adamawa N4.6 billion.
- The regional analysis for state IGR shows that states like Kano, Anambra/Abia and Borno are underperforming in their respective regions as their relatively high GDP and commercial nature has failed to translate into tax revenues for the state Governments.
- Only 3 states generate tax revenues of above N1,000 per head and these are Lagos (pop. 20 m) with IGR per capita of N10, 851, Rivers (pop. 6.1 m) with IGR per capita of N3,280 and Delta (pop. 4.8 m) : IGR per capita of N2,258.
- We believe the IGR status of a majority (> 90 percent) of Nigerian states is a cause for concern, and raises serious questions about their viability, in the event of an oil price shock.
- To make matters worse a majority of the states are also highly indebted. Yobe had $31.8 million (N5.088 billion) in external debt as at June 2013, equivalent to 180 percent of its IGR for the whole of 2012.
Article Credit Businessday
