‘Reliable, accurate data is panacea for even development’

Reliable, accurate and precise data has been identified as a panacea for even development across the 36 states, Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and the 774 local government areas for Nigeria to attain equitable allocation of internally generated resources.

“The essence is that we must have accurate and precise data for our political economy,” said Rabiu Olowo, the Lagos State Commissioner for Finance, at the 2-day sensitisation and advocacy programme on data gathering and management with the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Committee(RMAFC)team in Lagos.

According to Olowo, the visit of the RMAFC team underpins the crucial role accurate at a captured plays in all aspects of developmental agenda.

He opined that no visible development can be achieved with dearth of reliable, accurate and precise data.

“The team is in Lagos to help us put all those data into context; so, I think it is very   our fiscal management across Nigeria,” said Olowo, stating that the state must have accurate population figure, same as the number of students enrolled in schools and out-of school-children.

However, to assist RMAFC in computing the horizontal revenue allocation between states and local government councils, all relevant stakeholders in the state were adequately mobilised to be in attendance and to ensure maximum cooperation in ensuring the success of the sensitization programme.

According to the state commissioner for finance, Lagos is a model for Internally Generated Revenue (IGR), hence the workshop was focused on shared experiences among participants.

The RMAFC team leader representing Kwara State in the committee, Shuaib Abdullahi Yaman said, there is a need for data ammonization among the 57 Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs)of Lagos.

According to him, all that is required of Lagos state is to submit the correct data about its population, especially the number of students enrolled in schools at the state level and pupils at the local government areas to ensure Lagos gets its fair share of federal allocation.

Yaman opined that Lagos remains the only state that does not depend on federal allocation, because the state takes its IGR very serious.

However, he stated that RMAFC wants a situation where Lagos State can further improve its IGR completely away from FAC, hence the technical visitation to Lagos.