According to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) timetable and schedule of activities for the 2023 general elections, the governorship election will be held on March 11, 2023.
Governorship campaigns commenced on October 12, 2022, and like previous election cycles, the 14 candidates vying for the governorship position in office in Kwara state will lay out their plans for the next four years for the state and its people. Among the contestants for the highest office in the state is AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, the incumbent Governor who is seeking a second term.
On March 10, 2019, AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq won the Kwara state governorship election and has presided over the affairs of the state for the past three and a half years. In April, AbdulRahman announced his intention to contest a second term and subsequently secured his party’s ticket, joining the list of other candidates for the governorship in 2023.
As candidates and political parties continue with their campaigns ahead of the Kwara state governorship election, it is essential to bring issue-based voting to the forefront of voter education.
Thus, in this article, Dataphyte examines some crucial socio-economic indicators in Kwara state, particularly assessing the performance of the current administration for the past 3 and half years from a data perspective, where such data is available.
Also, presenting the current state of these issues to potentially shape the manifestos and campaign promises of the 14 governorship candidates as they make their case to the people of Kwara state in this campaign season.
GDP, IGR & Fiscal Strength
GDP
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) simply refers to the total monetary or market value of all the finished goods and services produced within a country’s borders (in this respect, Delta state) in a period of time.
The GDP gives information about the size of the economy of a state and how the economy is performing. In fact, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) explains that the growth rate of real GDP is often used as an indicator of the general health of the economy.
The latest GDP data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) shows that Kwara state has a total GDP of $4.12 billion. This places it as the 9th state in Nigeria with the lowest GDP and the 2nd lowest in the North central region.
Although no subnational GDP report has been released since the current government assumed office, however, some recent reports put the GDP of Kwara state at an estimated $3.7 billion.
If this report and other recent extrapolations are anything to go by, it suggests that the state GDP has declined over the years. Therefore, increasing the GDP, which indicates the size of the economy of the state, should form a critical agenda of the candidates for the state in the 2023 election.
IGR
One of the indicators to also assess the economic performance of a state is the amount of revenue its able to generate internally. As a matter of fact, Economic experts hold the view that a state’s ability to drive sustainable economic activities, such as boosting employment and providing efficient public service, shows in the level of independent revenue such a state can generate.
According to the data from NBS, in 2018, Kwara state generated a total of N23.05 billion in internal revenue. In 2019, Kwara state recorded a 32.93 percent increase in its IGR, bringing the total revenue generated to N30.64 billion. Dataphyte’s review of the state’s IGR from 2010 shows that the 2019 figure stands as the highest IGR the state has generated so far.
In 2020, Kwara state’s internal revenue dropped by 35.95 percent to N19.62 billion. Compared with the other 17 states that recorded negative revenue growth in 2020, Kwara state had the 4th worst decline. The Kwara State Internal Revenue Service (KW-IRS) Executive Chair, Shade Omoniyi, attributed the sharp decline to the effects of COVID-19 and other related factors.
The 2021 full-year IGR data that was recently published by NBS shows that Kwara state generated N26.96 billion, indicating a bounceback from the impact of COVID-19.
While the positive gains the state has recorded in its IGR in recent years are impressive, it would need to consolidate on these gains if it hopes to steer its finances away from over-dependence on FAAC allocations, as data suggest that the state is still highly reliant on FAAC allocations.
Between 2019 to 2021, Kwara state generated only N77.22 billion as its internal revenue. However, in the same period, it received N129.03 billion as FAAC allocation. This shows that the amount the state received as FAAC allocation in 3 years is 40.15 percent higher than the IGR it generated within the same period, indicating a high level of dependence on FAAC allocation. This is unhealthy for the state and worrisome, as Dataphyte pointed out in an earlier report.
On its budget performance, particularly with respect to IGR, there has been an improvement annually in the years under review, although it only surpassed its projected revenue once.
In 2018, before the current administration came into office, the state government projected to generate a revenue of N26.53 billion. However, at the end of the year, it generated only N23.05 billion, representing 86.88 percent performance.
When the AbdulRahman-led government took over in 2019, the projected IGR was pegged at N34.21 billion, and the state achieved 89.57 percent of the projected revenue. In 2020, due to the impact of COVID-19, the state’s projected IGR was reviewed to N15.85 billion. At the end of the year, the state surpassed the revenue, recording a 123.70 percent performance. In 2021, it recorded a 96.96 percent performance.
As Kwara state consolidates its efforts in increasing its IGR post-COVID-19, a similar effort would also be needed to meet its projected revenue for the year. Therefore, the candidates would need to develop a clear plan to achieve this.
FISCAL SUSTAINABILITY
In 2021, BudgIT assessed the fiscal sustainability of Nigeria’s 36 states. According to the assessment, which used 4 indexes — the ability of states to meet their operating expenses; the ability to meet operating expenses and loan repayment without having to borrow; fiscal power to borrow more given low debt burden vis-à-vis how much is generated in a year, and prioritisation of capital over recurrent expenditures to determine the health of states — Kwara state came 10th place, standing as the best-performing state in the North-Central region.
In the 2020 ranking, the state ranked 12th out of 36 states, indicating an improvement in its fiscal performance. However, there’s still work to be done with respect to the state’s increasing debt.
According to the debt from Debt Management Office (DMO), at the end of December 2021, Kwara state had a total domestic debt of N93.40 billion. In 2019, the total domestic debt was N63 billion, indicating a 48.25 percent increase in domestic debt between 2019 and 2021.
The state’s total domestic debt as of December 2021 is 17.32 percent higher than the total IGR it generated between 2019 to 2021.
On foreign debt, the state recorded a significant drop between 2019 and December 2021. According to the data from the DMO, in 2019, Kwara state had a total foreign debt of $1,400 million ($1.4 billion), making it the second state with the highest external debt out of the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT)
In 2020, the foreign debt declined by 96.51 percent to $47.06 million. However, as of the end of 2021, the foreign debt stood at $48.87 million, a 3.84 percent increase over the 2020 figure.
Unemployment rate
One of the promises common to every government in Nigeria, both at the state and federal level, is the creation of job opportunities for the people. It was the same for Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq of Kwara State.
At the 5th Annual General Meeting of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) Kwara/Kogi Chapter shortly after his inauguration, the Governor reiterated that his administration would collaborate with manufacturers in the state to create more jobs opportunities for the youths. He further restated this in 2020, noting that job creation remains a priority in his administration.
The 2020 fourth-quarter labour force statistics released by the NBS put the unemployment rate in Kwara at 42.5 percent. Before Governor Abdulrahman assumed office in 2019, the unemployment data in the third quarter of 2018 showed that the state had a 21.13 percent unemployment rate. This shows that the unemployment rate in the state increased by 21.37 percent in 2020.
With a 42.5.71 percent rate in 2020, Kwara state currently has the lowest unemployment rate in the North-central. The current rate is however a high jump from its 2018 rate. Whoever emerges as the winner out of the 14 governorship candidates will need to develop strategies to reduce the high unemployment rate, especially as no new unemployment data has been released since the first quarter of 2021 and, thus, may not represent the state’s current reality.
Poverty rate
One of the many actions the Governor of Kwara State, Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq, took when he took over in 2019 was to forward a bill to the Kwara state House of Assembly to institutionalise his various initiatives to counter poverty in the state.
The bill, which was passed by the lawmakers, established the Kwara State Social Investment Programmes (KWASSIPs) with initiatives such as the K-Power, Owo Arugbo, and Owo Isowu. The state government noted that the initiatives are created for the purpose of lifting the people of the state from poverty.
Dataphyte’s checks on the portal of the KWASSIP show that implementation of the various initiatives commenced between 2020 and 2021. The impacts of these various poverty reduction initiatives established by the government cannot be determined, especially as no recent poverty headcount data has since been published by the NBS under the Abdulrahman administration.
However, the 2019 poverty headcount data released by the NBS shows that Kwara state has a poverty rate of 20.35 percent, the lowest poverty rate among the 6 North-central states and 9th out of the 34 states that were assessed that year.
But then, with the increase that has since been recorded in the national poverty rate between 2019 till date, the poverty rate in Kwara state may have also climbed up.
According to the data from the Poverty World Clock, 65.83 million Nigerians were living in poverty in 2019, but now, the number has risen to 69.98 million. With this increase and another 7 million Nigerians, the World Bank has projected that may be pushed into poverty at the end of 2022, the 2019 poverty rate in Kwara state may not accurately represent the current reality of the state with respect to its poverty rate.
Therefore, clear plans and policies for reducing poverty in the state should form a critical part of the agenda of governorship candidates in the upcoming election.
Budgetary Allocation to Key Sectors – Education, Health & Agriculture
Investments in education and health are viewed as necessary for the acceleration of the economic growth of every society. Hence, the reason the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) advises governments to allocate 15 percent to 20 percent of their total public spending for the fiscal year to education. It’s for this similar reason that the Abuja Declaration recommends 15 percent of government annual spending for the health sector.
A review of the budgetary allocation to these 2 sectors between 2019 to 2021 shows that the state has always met the minimum suggested benchmarks, except for health in 2021.
In 2019, Kwara allocated 17.95 percent of its total budget for the fiscal year to education. The share of allocation to education dropped to 17.29 percent in 2020 but not below the advised minimum 15 percent benchmark of UNESCO. The 2021 allocation recorded the highest share of budgetary allocation to the sector — 23.06 percent.
For health, the highest share of allocation was in 2020, double the 15 percent of the Abuja Declaration benchmark. This may be attributed to COVID-19 as the share of health allocation in 2021 dropped to 12.15 percent, even below the 2019 record.
While the state’s share of budgetary allocations to the education and health sector has been quite commendable, the share of allocation to agriculture has been extremely low, far below the Maputo Declaration recommendation. A review of the state’s 2020 and 2021 budgets reveals that the government only allocated 3.84 percent and 3.09 percent of its annual spending to agriculture, respectively.
Given that in Kwara state, agriculture is the primary source of income, particularly in the rural parts, better investment in the sector, in terms of higher budgetary allocation, could help the state to maximise the economic gains in the sector.
Number of Out-of-School Children
The most recent data on the number of out-of-school children in Nigeria was published by the NBS in 2018. According to the data, Nigeria has a total of 10.19 million out-of-school children. Of this figure, Kwara state accounts for 84,247. Since then, no data has been released, especially one that gives a breakdown of the figure by state.
As part of its initiative to boost school attendance in the state, the current government introduced the Ounje Ofeprogramme. The impact of this initiative by the AbdulRahman administration to reduce the number of out-of-school children in the state cannot be assessed, as there hasn’t been new data showing the number of out-of-school children at the sub-national level.
However, a recent report by UNESCO noted that the number of out-of-school children in Nigeria has risen to 20 million. This high increase will also impact the current number of out-of-school children in Kwara state. Thus, policies to improve access to education, as well as the quality of learning, should be key in the agenda of the candidates for the state.
Ease of Doing Business Ranking
One of the key factors investors consider before choosing an investment destination is the business climate. As such, governments, both at the state and federal level endeavour to create a conducive business environment so as to attract investors, considering its economic importance and contribution to the economic development of the state.
In this regard, the Kwara state fares poorly. According to the latest subnational data on the ease of doing business that was published in a report by the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC), Kwara state is the 7th least favourbale investment destination in Nigeria. The state came in 30th place out of the 36 states and FCT in the PEBEC ease of doing business ranking, with a score of 4.70 out of a total index score of 10.
This should also be an area of concern in the 2023 elections. For the state to boost its economic fortune, a commitment to improving the business environment should form a crucial part of the plans of the 2023 governorship candidates.
Under-5 Mortality Rate & Access to Health
On health, the indicators in Kwara state are not quite impressive. According to the data from NBS, the under-five mortality rate in the Kwara state is estimated at 74 deaths per 1,000 live births.
Although the state has the second lowest rate in the North-central region, the mortality rate is, however, higher than the average of 62 deaths per 1,000 live births in Lower-Middle-Income Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) target of 20 per 1,000 live births.
Another important point to highlight under the health indicator is the poor access to quality healthcare in the state. According to a report, there is limited access to quality healthcare, especially for rural dwellers in Kwara state. While the current administration has taken some measures to address the issue of access to healthcare in the state by setting up a new health insurance scheme, known as the ‘Go Live’, more efforts will be needed to improve access to quality healthcare in the state, particularly a commitment to reducing the under-five mortality rate. This should also be a top priority for the governorship candidates.