The Governor of Anambra State, Chukwuma Soludo, says if all Anambra earnings are shared individually with the residents of the state, nobody will get up to N2,500.
Soludo, who spoke at The Platform, a programme by Lagos-based church, Covenant Nation, to mark the 2024 Democracy Day on Wednesday, said he shares the pains of Nigerians in these challenging times.
“As a person, for example, I deeply feel the pains of Nigerians at these challenging times especially the over 100 million Nigerians who are multidimensionally poor. Times are hard,” Soludo said.
“Sometimes, I just wish that I can give every resident of Anambra maybe a million naira each to ameliorate the hardship that we have, but the reality is that if we get our entire revenue in a month, both from FAAC and from our IGR and put it on the table, call all our estimated 8.5 million residents and share it, nobody will get up to N2,500.”
The governors said it is from the same money that can’t go around for N2,500 each that he will still have to pay salaries, gratuities, build roads, and invest in health and education among others.
He said they recently recruited over 8,000 new teachers and over a thousand medical personnel who would still need to be paid from the same revenue.
Soludo warned that Nigeria faces stringent fiscal quagmire and even technical solvency challenges because its tax revenue is one of the lowest in the world.
He also said that debt has piled to a level that leaves little headroom for more borrowing all at a very high cost, yet the needs of the citizens keep increasing at a geometric proportion every day.
The governor said that the Federal Government can resort to an easy way out by printing more money but after one week or two a bottle of coke might be costing N1 million.
