Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has challenged state governors to invest in areas of economic advantage, saying that Lagos State was able to grow its Internally Generated Revenue, IGR, because it started thinking like a sovereign state when its allocation from the central government was seized.
Professor Osinbajo said this at Ekiti Economic and Investment summit tagged ‘Fountain Summit 2021’ organised by the Ekiti State government to find sustainable solutions to some socio-economic issues besetting the state.
Recall that the administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo withheld the monthly allocation to Lagos State for a while.
At the summit, he, alongside Governors of Ekiti, Lagos, Edo and Kaduna states, Kayode Fayemi, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, Godwin Obaseki and Nasir el-Rufai, respectively, also called for state police.
While speaking on economy, the Vice President said: “Attracting investments to any state should be the major focus of state chief executives because that is the revenue hub and determinant of how happy the people of any state will be in terms of economic development with their standard of living.
“But while trying to grow investments, we must be cautious of multiple taxations; it weighs down businesses.
“Ekiti is a business-friendly environment. Ekiti has also excelled in the aspect of ease of doing business. You have vast arable lands for agriculture.
“Let me say that Ekiti has a bigger economy than many Africa nations. The question we should ask ourselves is that if I were the landlord of this sub-nation, how do we survive?
“During my time as a Commissioner in Lagos, we started with N600 million monthly Internally Generated Revenues, IGRs, in 1999.
“The seizure of Lagos funds by President Olusegun Obasanjo made us think like a sovereign state.
“Today, Lagos is making over N45 billion monthly.” (Vanguard)
