Anambra Governor Chukwuma Soludo disclosed that dividing Anambra’s earnings among residents would result in each person receiving less than N2,500.
Speaking at The Platform event to commemorate the 2024 Democracy Day, Soludo expressed empathy for Nigerians during these difficult times.
The Anambra State governor said, “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.
“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.
“It is from the same money that can’t go around at N2,500 each that he will still have to pay salaries, gratuities, build roads and bridges, invest in health and education, invest in security, tackle menacing erosion, etc.
“We recently recruited over 8,115 new teachers and over a 1,000 medical personnel, and these people also need to be paid from the same revenue.
He, meanwhile, cautioned that “Nigeria faces stringent fiscal quagmire and even technical solvency challenges because its tax revenue is one of the lowest in the world adding 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 in geometric proportions by the day.”
According to Soludo, “At the extreme, 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.”