Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Dr. Olisa Agbakoba, has said anyone seeking the presidency in 2027 must present a clear plan to secure Nigeria’s revenue base, saying persistent leakages in government revenues remain one of the country’s biggest development challenges.
Speaking in an interview on ARISE News on Friday, Agbakoba said Nigeria’s growth problems were tied directly to weaknesses in revenue management and accountability.
“Any presidential candidate who cannot tell us exactly how he would secure our revenue base ought not to be president,” he said.
“Because that’s the source of development. The key in Nigeria’s development challenge is the revenue leakage that we are seeing.”
Agbakoba said the issue went beyond politics and should become a major subject in the build-up to the 2027 general election.
“So whether the leak comes from the MDAs not remitting or some guys hiding it under the table, my own suggestion is let that be one of the big issues for 2027,” he stated.
The senior lawyer said Nigeria continued to lose huge revenues because Ministries, Departments and Agencies deducted operational expenses before remitting funds into the Federation Account.
“So all the MDAs deduct what they need to spend and remit the change. That’s the problem,” he said.
Agbakoba noted that although measures such as the Treasury Single Account and Executive Order 9 were introduced to improve transparency, the intended objectives had not been fully achieved.
“What President Tinubu correctly did with Executive Order 9, which is not working, is to say, remit all accounts, all funds into the Federation account,” he said.
He added, “But the interpretation given by the NNPC and the MDAs is that that means or allows them to deduct what they need as operating expenses.”
According to him, Nigeria’s borrowing culture would continue unless the country addressed what he described as a “fiscal defect” in the management of public revenues.
“And unless we tackle this fiscal defect, we’re going to keep borrowing money,” Agbakoba said.
“And I say that if we’re able to sort out this fiscal weakness, then we can bump up what we earn as revenue. And if we bump up what we earn as revenue, then it will reduce borrowing.”
Agbakoba also argued that politicians and public officials needed a stronger understanding of constitutional provisions guiding public finance and governance.
“It’s very obvious to me in my interaction with politicians that their level of understanding of the Constitution is very, very minimal,” he said.
He added, “The level of knowledge is too low.”
Faridah Abdulkadiri
