Your Excellency Sir, the quest to improve our IGR will depend largely on our ability to attract and establish businesses in the State, as tax is based on economic activity and assets from earnings and savings therefrom.

The more businesses we establish, and the more of the existing ones that is sustained, the more tax income to the State, and the better and improved living standard for our people - through job creation and better earnings opportunities.

The operations of indigenous Oil Companies in our State is commendable (WaterSmith, Seplat and NNPC), and even SHE'LL. This is thanks to your leadership and the support of the State Government. These activities in the establishment of Modular Refinery and the Assa North and South Gas Plants (some of the biggest in the West African Coast) will open a new vista of opportunities in provision of gas supply for energy in industrialisation of the State and its environs - this will spearhead a boost in hightech job creation and higher earnings to the people, which consequently will translate to improved IGR collections to the State through PAYE, WHT, Property, Road, and Waste Management Taxes, Etcetera.

Our State will do well to go through the trajectory of its comparative advantage and love/passion in education to establish education businesses for commercial purpose for IGR, as well as encourage private investments in this line.

The demand for higher education in the country and our State has not been met by the 200 plus Universities in the country, especially in the Medical and Paramedical fields, as can be witnessed by the continuous surge of applications from would-be students and parents to the JAMB each year, and the education tourism to places like Cyprus, India, Pakistan, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Canada and the USA, Ghana, Gambia and Republic of Benin.

Your Excellency Sir, I am musing that the Kingsley Ozumba Mbadiwe University be made a University of Medical Sciences to be a centre for medical and Paramedical education for courses like Medicine and Surgery, Dentistry, Pharmacy, Nursing, Midiwiffery, Physiotherapy, Anastatic. Etcetera.

The viability of this thought-line can be seen from the monthly IGR of our State University IMSU, which earns between 200 to 230 million Naira monthly, with a tuition-free model of operation - imagine what a tuition-based Institution will earn as revenue. 

FUTO has just introduced Medicine and Surgery into their programme memo, and it is over-subscribed, with annual tuition of about 350,000 Naira. Most private Universities in the country offer Medicine and Surgery, and it has remained the flagship of those institutions and the key revenue earner - Universities like Afe Babalola University Ekiti State, Gregory University Uturu-Abia State, and Babcock University Ogun State.

Ondo State owns 3 Universities and runs 2 on commercial model, with 1 dedicated to Medical and Paramedical education. This have continued to attract influx of students and activities from the entire country, and the local economy of the State and its IGR has been the greatest beneficiary of that policy. I suggest therefore we emulate them, considering also all that I have itemised above, and scale-up our IGR through specialised  University Education Business for improved revenue for stimulation of our local economy.

Sir, it will be great to further this discussions in person. 

Please accept the assurances of my ever loyalty and support. I am as always ready for more explanations.

-- Dr Nwaodu Lawrence
   Development Economist,
   PhD Liverpool
   WRITTEN NOV. 24, 2021 - AS RELEVANT AS EVER, EVEN TODAY.

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