Shettima says state govts awash with liquidity, pay 32% debt
A coalition of civil society organisations has raised concerns over Nigeria’s worsening fiscal crisis. They said the country loses over $18 billion yearly to Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs), while debt servicing consumes more than 70 per cent of its revenue.
However, Vice President Kashim Shettima said the series of reforms undertaken by the present administration made states richer. This CSOs concerns was contained in a newly published advocacy paper, ‘Financing for Development in Nigeria: Sectoral Context and Insights for the Fourth International Conference’, released ahead of the United Nations’ Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4), scheduled to hold in Seville, Spain, on June 30, 2025.
The policy position was led by the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), in collaboration with Oxfam in Nigeria, Christian Aid, the International Budget Partnership, Tax Justice and Governance Platform, Connected Development and others under the Africa Agenda on Financing for Development (Agenda Afrique).
According to the report, Nigeria faces a multi-dimensional financing gap driven by underperforming domestic resource mobilisation, inequitable global financial rules, and increasing vulnerability to climate change.
The document presented to journalists at a press conference in Abuja, yesterday, warned that critical sectors in the country had remained severely underfunded.
Presenting the report, CISLAC Executive Director, Auwal Rafsanjani, lamented that education spending lags below the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO)-recommended benchmarks, health financing is under four per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and climate resilience is a low national priority.
The report also stressed that while international frameworks such as the African Union’s Agenda 2063, ECOWAS Vision 2050, and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) offer a shared vision for progress, the real struggle lies in resource mobilisation.
Rafsanjani lamented that “most Nigerian states do not have measurable development blueprints,” making it difficult to track progress or attract meaningful investments.
The coalition called for sweeping global reforms to the international financial system, while urging world leaders attending the Seville conference to commit to more equitable global tax rules, improved access to concessional financing, and climate justice measures such as dedicated loss and damage funds for vulnerable countries.
In the address read on his behalf by the Special Adviser to the President on Economic Affairs in the Office of the Vice President, Dr Tope Fashua, at the opening of the 27th Conference of the Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria (CITN), yesterday, in Abuja, the VP also disclosed that the state governments paid 32 per cent of the global debt they owed.
He stated: “The critical reforms of the President even extend to the matter of local council autonomy, and the earlier mentioned reforms led to a situation where our sub-national governments are now awash with liquidity. Our states have paid down, in just one year, 32 per cent of their global debts. Many of our states have doubled and tripled their internally generated revenues (IGRs) in the same space of time.”
President Bola Tinubu justified the ongoing tax reforms of his administration, saying they were imperative for sustainable development. Tinubu, who was represented by the Minister of State for Finance, Dr Doris Uzoka-Anite, said: “I believe that a robust, transparent and fair tax system is essential not only for financing government operations but also for creating an environment of accountability, stability and long-term development.
“Accordingly, the government has taken deliberate steps to restructure and modernise our tax administration and legal framework,” he added.
