Fiscal Federalism and Development In Nigeria

Abstract

It is a known fact that the nature of fiscal federalism the military government imposed on the nation has no regards for the source of production and revenue generation. This was as the result of constitutional empowerment that put the federal government in charge of payment and tax collection.This has gone a long way to hamper revenue generation effort and subject states as agents of federal government. Despite various committees and commissions’ recommended principles and formula, conflict are still brewing. Though previous scholarly works have been geared towards the adoption of an acceptable revenue sharing formula for equity and fairness to take its root, but what is obtainable generates internal ramblings in the polity, cold war amongst the various ethnic groups and a yardstick in understanding lack of sustainable development in the country. In the course of finding solution to this problems, this paper focuses on the following issues: Nigerian fiscal federalism, effect on development, its importance to national development, summary of the existing various principles and sharing formula, the contending issues, objective of fiscal relations and theory of fiscal federalism. The system approach was used in analysing the various component in its theoretical framework. Historical method was used in gathering data and documentary analysis was used to analyse secondary data to arrive at conclusion which recommendations were made for an enhanced fiscal federalism for a sustainable development.

Keywords: fiscal federalism, development, revenue, Nigeria, government