Wike said this during a public lecture on ‘Taxing powers in a federal system’, held on Saturday to mark the 60th birthday of a lawyer, Ahmed Raji (SAN).

The governor, who was represented by Rivers State Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Prof. Zacchaeus Adangor (SAN), said, “I have heard a lot of comments been made that we are fighting Federal Government; there is no desire or any intention of the Rivers state government to fight the Federal Government. But you must remember that in a federal system, the states are not house boys of the Federal Government. The principle of co-equality is fundamental to the federal arrangement; that principle leads to the principle of autonomy, autonomy leads you to physical autonomy and physical autonomy leads you to physical federalism.”

According to him, the federal or state governments are co-equal because none derives its life from the other.

Wike said, “They both derive their life from the constitution because they have co-equality and every level of government is entitled to have access to sufficient revenue so that they can carry out its own responsibility without subordinating its will to that of a superior authority. That is the fundamental aspect of fiscal federalism and until we get it, we will continue this journey of talking and talking without result. But I think that the court has a role to play; the court can lay this crisis and controversy to rest when it makes a pronouncement.”

The Speaker, Mudashiru Obasa, directed the acting Clerk, Olalekan Onafeko, to transmit a clean copy to Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu for assent.

Both bills were passed after unanimous votes by the lawmakers at the sitting where they were read the third time.

The bill that prohibits open cattle grazing proposes a 21-year jail term for herders in possession of firearms and the establishment of a task force to curb open grazing of cattle.

The anti-open grazing law followed similar laws passed in Benue, Ogun, Ekiti, Ondo and other parts of the country to curb killer herdsmen activities, while the VAT bill was passed in the wake of similar legislation by Governor Nyesom Wike in Rivers State.

The Speaker, Obasa, commended his colleagues after the bills were passed.

He said: “I thank you all for this historic exercise.”

The figure is about 10 per cent higher than the N2.68 billion recorded in 2019.

The breakdown shows that the third quarter (Q3) recorded the largest performance with a total of N840.7 billion while N620 billion, the least quarterly performance, was recorded in Q1.

VAT accounted for N1.53 trillion or 52 per cent of the total figure, while N1.41 trillion was sourced from CIT.

The CIT income generated in 2020 is 13.5 per cent short of the N1.63 trillion generated from the same source in 2019.

The 2020 CIT income was distributed accordingly: local companies (N750.5 billion), foreign CIT payment (N380.8 billion), and others (N238.1 billion.

According to Guardian, professional services (including telecoms) and banks/other financial institutions led last year’s CIT revenue drive with N180.3 billion and N96.4 billion respectively. While banks and other financial institutions’ contribution to the CIT fell by about 48 per cent (compared to N142.7 billion realised from the sector in 2019), professional service improved slightly, rising from N177.7 billion generated from the sector in 2019 to N180.3 billion.

Other top contributors to CIT incomes are other manufacturing (N80.2 billion), commerce and trading (N65.6 billion), breweries, bottling and beverages (N53.2 billion), state ministries and parastatals (N49 billion), transport and haulage (N45.5 billion), oil-producing (N40.8 billion) and federal ministries and parastatals (N22.5 billion).

The laggards were the textile and garment industry (N360 million), mining (N343.2 million), local government councils (N1.1 billion), chemicals, paints and allied industries (N2 billion) and publishing, printing and packaging (N2.1 billion).

Textile and garment recorded highest year-to-date (YTD) improvement with 100 per cent jump in its CIT generation while the contribution of petrochemical and petroleum refineries fell by 45 per cent YTD to top the least improved sectors.

In the fourth quarter, the country generated N454.7 billion from VAT, making it the top-performing quarter. The first quarter was the poorest with 324.6 billion. The pattern was different from that of 2019 when the Q2 topped the year followed by the fourth and then first.

Recall that VAT was increased from five per cent to 7.5 per cent as contained in the Finance Act 2019. The increase took effect on February 1, 2020. According to sectoral analysis sourced from the NBS data, the government received N763 billion from non-import (local) VAT, N420.4 billion from non-import (foreign) VAT and N347.7 billion from the Nigeria Customs Service (NSC)-import VAT.

Professional service recorded N162.3 billion to emerge as the top contributing sector followed by other manufacturing with N154.2 VAT revenue. Mining recorded N251 million to take the least position in terms of value addition to VAT revenue.