The Nigeria Governors’ Forum has thrown its weight behind President Bola Tinubu’s directive that all oil and gas revenues due to the government be paid directly into the Federation Account, framing the move as a decisive step toward restoring transparency and discipline in the country’s public finances.

In a statement signed by its Director of Media and Strategic Communications, Yunusa Tanko Abdullahi, the forum said the policy would strengthen fiscal federalism by ensuring that all tiers of government have a clearer view of the nation’s earnings and a firmer basis for planning.

The order mandates that entitlements arising from production-sharing and related contracts, including royalty oil, tax oil, profit oil and profit gas, be remitted straight into the Federation Account. It also seeks to clarify and separate regulatory roles in the petroleum sector, an area long plagued by overlapping mandates and opaque financial flows.

The governors, operating as a non-partisan bloc, stressed that the integrity and predictability of inflows into the Federation Account are “foundational” to Nigeria’s fiscal architecture. They noted that oil and gas receipts remain the core of distributable national income, shaping how much is available to the federal, state and local governments each month.

They pointed to recent Federation Account Allocation Committee communiqués, which have repeatedly highlighted a mismatch between gross revenue collections and the final amounts shared. For states, the forum argued, it is the distributable sum that ultimately determines their fiscal capacity, not headline revenue figures.

According to the NGF, complex and poorly reconciled remittance pathways weaken fiscal predictability and disrupt capital planning cycles across the country. This, they warned, undermines the ability of governments to commit to long-term projects and sustain essential services.

With Nigeria’s population now estimated at more than 220 million and rising, the governors underscored that states are on the frontline of delivering education, primary healthcare, infrastructure, security and economic opportunities. Reliable and transparent revenue streams, they said, are indispensable to meeting these obligations.

NGF Chairman and Kwara State Governor, AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, described the Federation Account as the “backbone” of the intergovernmental fiscal system, arguing that aligning oil and gas remittances with constitutional provisions is not only a legal necessity but a practical one for national stability and development.