The title of this piece would have been more fitting for Zacch Adelabu Adedeji, Nigeria’s chief agbowopa (tax collector) in two broad dimensions. One, his birth name is same as the Biblical Zacchaeus, a chief tax collector in Jericho, terribly despised by the Jewish people because the taxation system was largely seen as corrupt and oppressive.
Most Nigerians today are as riled as the Jews. Two, both Ogbomoso-born Zacch (shortened form of Zacchaeus) and his Jericho-born namesake and precursor, are into same business of taking from the people to give to government in anticipation of government using same for the benefits of the people. So, as originally designed, taxation wasn’t meant to be robbing Peter to pay Paul deceit, though in the ancient Egypt where taxation is believed to have its origin around 3000 BC, corvee, meaning forced labour for public projects, a synonym for taxes at the time, was the central pillar. According to historians, Pharaohs who ruled the land, established a system based on the corvee as well as tithes (a share of agricultural produce). Scribes would conduct biennial tours to assess and collect these taxes. Grain was also a common form of payment due to the lack of coined money then. Times have however changed. Tours are no longer needed to rake in trillions in whatever currency as taxes around the world, both in first and tellingly third world countries, with the latter mostly on the African continent, currently inhabited by 72.7% of the global population living in extreme poverty, according to the World Bank data in its latest report.
Infact, Nigeria and DRCongo alone, are believed to house 11.7% of the global population of the extremely poor people. Yet in the outgoing year, Adedeji and his team, in the first nine months of the outgoing 2025, raked in tax revenue totalling N22.59 trillion. In June alone, a whopping N3.66 trillion was trawled in. Yet, World Bank wrote concerning the giant of Africa and its fellow poor neighbours; “Africa is home to a significant portion of the world’s poorest population, with sub-Saharan Africa housing the highest share of people living in extreme poverty.
“In 2025, it was estimated that nearly 11.7% of the global population in extreme poverty lived in Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo alone. The continent as a whole accounts for over half of the global poor, with a large percentage of its own population living below the poverty line.
“The Sub-Saharan Africa region is home to the majority of the world’s poor, with approximately 72.7% of the global population living in extreme poverty in this region. Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are major contributors, each housing around 11.7% of the global extreme poor population. Other African nations with a high number of people in extreme poverty include Tanzania, Mozambique, and Madagascar.
“About a third of Africa’s population, or 429 million people in 2024, lived in extreme poverty” the global bank claimed.
Funny enough, Adedeji and his team even beat the performance mark set for them by their boss, President Bola Tinubu, by a couple of trillion of naira the same year poverty deepened among Nigerians who provided the N17.3 trillion non-oil taxes contribution to the record-setting N22.59 trillion of the nine months. Yoruba will capture the oxymoronic tragedy with “alufa hun sanra omo ijo hun ru” (the priest is getting fatter while the congregants are getting thinner due to wide prosperity disparity). The question then is, when will it be for the people, the hen laying the golden egg? At least in Pharaoh’s dream, there were seven fat cows before the thin ones surfaced to gobble the corpulent ones. When will Nigerians climb out of the extreme poverty zone and at least be counted amongst societies where two decent meals a day are no longer a prayer point? Even if it is the proverbial Abu’s money that would be used to entertain Abu as they say, let Abu at least have some living experience that won’t suggest the Adamic curse was directly heaped on the Black race. Let’s even assume the ground is literally cursed, at least the painful toil is bringing huge tax revenue to those in power. Adedeji and his team are doing their jobs, let those being handed the collective sweat of Nigerians in the name of generated/consolidated revenue plough the resources back to ease the pain of those literally, metaphorically and symbolically bending their backs to make the billions happen.
Proverbs 14:31 says, “Whoever oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God. Psalm 35:10 adds, “My whole being will exclaim, “Who is like you, Lord? You rescue
the poor from those too strong for them,
the poor and needy from those who rob them.”
In 31 days from today, the administration is widening the tax net for Nigeria as promised by the President during his campaign when he said to the applause of attendants at the 11th Bola Tinubu Colloquium; “We reduce the purchasing power of the people, we can further slow down the economy, let’s widen the tax net. Those who are not paying now, if it is inclusive of Bola Tinubu, let the net get bigger and we take in more taxes. That is what we must do.”
That was his idea of renewing economic hope for Nigerians, already traumatized by the Buhari administration and voters punched his ticket to Aso Rock!.
In the face of existential threat posed by the raging insecurity and insurgency, most Nigerians have been too preoccupied with seeing the next day in the land of the living to critically consider how the new tax regime put together by the Taiwo Oyedele-led presidential tax and fiscal reform committee is going to further decimate their sinking standard of living. The Ikaremakoko, Ondo State-born celebrated economist has also been on a tear, trying to feed Nigerians with the goodies in the new package, especially those designated as the poorest of the poor, but most of his promotional tours have ended up jarring more nerves for those attentive enough to his agbowo ipa gospel. In his bid to simplifying the widened-net messaging, he has run the his campaign into the ditch a lot of times, creating some many controversies that even those well-versed in tax matters can no longer give definitive answers on how the coming additional deductions would affect still-breathing Nigerians from January 1, 2026.
Oyedele may be a good scholar, but he hasn’t shown capacity for good communication, despite being a lecturer and even a professor in a Nigerian university at that.
The other day, among his many muddled public performances, he was trying to explain the baseline for small businesses tax obligations and for minutes that I listened, he was just rambling. The lady interviewing him in an office setting, was also looking lost. If what he and his team had put together is now so difficult to explain, then something fishy is on and I wager that there are a lot of hidden and potentially bad intentions couched in taxation register in the net they say they are spreading for the good of poor Nigerians.
Simply put, I say nobody should trust this regime and its new tax agenda no matter how sugar-coated. Considering the recent experience of retroactively applying the 10% Withholding Tax on investments like Treasury Bills, Bonds etc, including on purchases made a year ago, whoever trusts this administration on tax, is doing so at his/her sorrow. Now, they take the 10% Withholding Tax on the Principal (the amount invested) at the point of maturity, thereby ensuring that nobody in the sphere escapes their net, instead of the normal practice of putting tax deductions on the discount (gains/profits on the investments). Of course, starting the regime from the point of advertising it, would mean not being able to “collect” from those who made their investments long before the law was passed! What meanness! It means if you invested a million naira for six months at 18.% discount when Treasury Bills were more profitable and got some N90,000 which of course would have been spent and now that investment is maturing when Withholding Tax knives are out, N9,000 is being deducted on your original one million naira, thereby shattering the principal sum and still being taxed not according to the current discount rate of 14% but the 18% of six months ago when currency value was different. What manner of people are these?
Oyedele has been practically on the Sycamore tree, preaching populism as the basis of his new push to make more money for the administration he serves. He has argued that the poor would breathe from the very first day of next year, while the “rich” in his framing, would pay more. The truth is his gospel is dark, because the expanded tax net is pulling practically everyone in, including the very poor he is prancing in the public domain to be defending. Even beyond the obvious, you can’t trust the implementation of the new tax law not to be retroactive, just like the stunt just pulled on short-term investments like Bonds.
Until now, federal government investment opportunities would naturally be the safest for Nigerians but there is a new “sheriff” in town. Expectedly, Nigerians are now bailing on federal government’s investments despite the new range of very short term tenors, to sustain patronage. Banks have suddenly become the beneficiaries of federal government’s greed in its business approach, with hitherto Bonds’ investors now flocking to fixed deposits with banks, despite the lower discount rates. A case of the devil you know.
A did a bit of literature review on Oyedele; his village days to stardom in the corporate world. My hunch says he isn’t the kind of guy that would want to do the Rehoboam thing on Nigerians by saying, “My father laid on you a heavy yoke; I will make it even heavier. My father scourged you with whips; I will scourge you with scorpions.”
I sincerely believe somewhere along his career when this administration would have been over or his service therein, he would realise the ills he has done his country men with this “net” being laid on all, and like the famous Jericho tax man, he would regret the disservice. Only that he would not have the wherewithal to refund Nigerians four times what would have been taken from them.
Yeah, government is so powerful and almost unstoppable but those running it should fear the God of the poor.
And for us, we won’t stop buzzing in their ears. Maybe someday, we will weary them out and forced to lift their knees off the poor’s necks.
End.
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