Exploring Ways and Measures Towards Enhancing Equitable Resource Sharing among the Levels and Organs of Government in Federal System, A Panacea to Sustainable Development in Nigeria

Abstract

Resource control and resource management is a very fundamental issue in any political society and more importantly in federal systems which is anchored on the principle of power sharing among the component units, over the years Nigeria federal system has characteristically been faced with problems and challenges arising from inequitable distribution of resources among the component units, and the arms of government, this is because the federal or central government whom by virtue of constitutional provision is empowered to collect major revenue and to allocate it to the levels of government has often allocate a chunk and larger percentage of the federally collected revenue to herself to the detriment of other levels of government this has resulted into various agitation by other levels of government on the ground of lack of or inadequate resources to carry out their constitutionally assigned duties and responsibilities. Thus there is the need to re-examine this scenario with the intent to identifying the reasons and factors responsible for this lop-lopsidedness in the allocation of resources and how it has hindered effective governance and development and to seek ways of correcting these anomalies. Content analysis which will involve the use of textbook, journals, periodical, magazine, newspapers government publication and inter net materials will provide data and information required for this research work. Findings reveals that the absurd, poor or lack of performance by lower levels of government in Nigeria is attributed to poor resource at their disposal, despite the different mechanism such as monthly budgetary allocation from the Federation account committee, Revenue mobilization and fiscal committee, annual budgetary allocation among others, it is important and necessary to x-ray this mechanism so as to see their short-comings and to propose and recommend a better and more effective sharing formula among the units and

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