Address issues that undermine nation’s revenue drive, Uzodimma tells RMFAC

Governor Hope Uzodimma has urged the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) to urgently address structural and technical challenges affecting Nigeria’s revenue drive and allocation system, warning that persistent distortions in data collection are undermining fairness in national revenue sharing.

The Governor made the appeal Wednesday June 3, 2026 at the Government House Owerri, while receiving the Chairman of RMFAC, Dr. Mohammed Bello Shehu, and senior members of the Commission who were in Imo State during their nationwide data verification exercise in the South-East geopolitical zone.

Uzodimma commended the initiative, describing it as a timely intervention capable of correcting long-standing inconsistencies in the country’s revenue framework.

He, however, stressed that the exercise must be carried out with strict transparency, accuracy, and accountability to achieve meaningful results.

He alleged that Imo State has for years suffered economic losses due to inaccurate reporting of crude oil and gas production, boundary disputes, weak regulatory oversight, and poor metering systems in the oil and gas sector.

According to him, some oil facilities and production activities within Imo are either under-reported or wrongly attributed to other States, resulting in revenue losses that should have accrued to the State.

“We have suffered great injustice occasioned by the non-reporting of actual crude oil and gas production from Imo State. Oil fields located within our local government areas are sometimes attributed to communities in other States,” he said.

The Governor maintained that Nigeria may be losing substantial revenue nationally due to inefficiencies in monitoring and production tracking, especially in the oil and gas industry. He then called for the deployment of modern technology and international best practices to improve data accuracy.

Uzodimma, who also chairs the Crude Oil Committee of the National Economic Council, urged the Commission to ensure that all crude oil, gas, and condensate outputs from Imo State are properly captured in official records for fair revenue allocation.

He reaffirmed the State government’s readiness to cooperate fully with RMFAC throughout the verification exercise, emphasising that Imo seeks only what is constitutionally due to her.

Earlier, Dr. Shehu explained that the nationwide exercise, currently in its fourth phase, is being conducted across the South-East following earlier completion in three other geopolitical zones.

He said the last exercise of similar scope was carried out about 10 years ago.

According to him, the verification is aimed at gathering updated and reliable data to support the review of Nigeria’s revenue allocation formula in line with constitutional provisions.

Dr. Shehu assured that the  process would be transparent and professionally executed, noting that trained teams had been deployed to ensure credibility of findings.

He also commended the Imo State Government for its cooperation and support, and expressed confidence that “the outcome of the exercise would contribute to a more equitable revenue sharing system that reflects current economic and demographic realities across the federation.”

Present at the event were the Deputy Governor of the State, Lady Chinyere Ekomaru, the Secretary to the State Government, Chief Cosmos Iwu, the Chief of Staff Barr Nnamdi Anyaehie, the Commissioners for Finance, and that Budget and Economic Planning, and some members of the State Expanded Executive Council.