Former Health Minister, Prof. Isaac Adewole, is urging the adoption of fiscal federalism, proposing that states should be allocated funds corresponding to their contributions to the federation account.

He also urged governors to grant autonomy to local government areas, enabling them to operate as an independent tier of government.

The former Vice Chancellor of the University of Ibadan made this known during an appearance on Channels Television’s “Inside Sources with Laolu Akande” programme on Friday.

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Adewole emphasized that although returning to regionalism might not be possible now, states should be empowered to develop independently, utilizing their own resources.

His words: “I am an apostle of fiscal and physical federalism. We need to look at how we share the resources of this country. If you have a law that prevents you from selling alcohol, that law should also prevent you from sharing money from alcohol. We should be honest with ourselves. States that prohibit the sale of alcohol should not share out of VAT from alcohol. Straight forward.

“Then we should also ask each state what they are bringing to the table. A situation where states only share money from oil is absurd and that is why we are where we are today because the other states are not bringing anything to the table.

“What is happening to our gold, bitumen, lithium? The resources from all of these, where are they? The only thing we know is oil money.”