THE NEW tax laws passed to give effect to the tax reform sought for by this government led by Bola Tinubu was allegedly altered by the executive as the law presented to the president and signed by him is now found to be different from what is contained in the gazette for that purpose. This way of conducting the affairs of the state amounts to fraudulent practice and the legislative arm of the government should summon courage to repeal the law while promulgating the appropriate law in place of it. So the law that the president insists to implement as from 1st January, 2026 is unknown to law to the extent of the law being fraudulently altered and this has automatically erased the tax law from existence.
Tinubu has a penchant for multiple taxation, especially for low income earners. This was the practice throughout his eight years as governor of Lagos State (1999 – 2007). Under his watch, motor bike riders were rounded up for various types of taxes; so were motor transporters that paid different taxes that were responsible for the high cost of transportation faire. Different known agencies paraded the streets of Lagos to effect compliance and collect revenue on behalf of the state for this purpose. The entire landscape of the state was one of rudderless eschewed of orderliness.
The latest in this pattern of fiscal policy of the Tinubu-led government is to introduce cybersecurity tax as well as taxing financial transactions made online as if it’s an offence to transact business online. Some argued in favour of this as a means of taxing the rich. But the fact remains that if this is allowed to pass, the poor will also be a victim even if they are exempted in the short term as this will be extended to them later.
On the other hand, the big investors were given preferential treatment like tax holiday that provided them freedom from taxation for a couple of years after the start of the business. This was a clear vindication that the primary purpose of government is to service the big owners of capital while suffocating small-scale businesses out of existence.
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This way of Tinubu style in approaching governance he brought with him into his new office as president of the country. He did not hide his disdain for the working people as he proclaimed in the course of the electioneering campaign that he would carry through his anti-poor policies whether people were opposed to it or not. Without missing words, he rolled out serially different forms of taxes that have caused untold hardships on the lives of the working people.
These included hikes in the price of petrol and other petroleum products. This he announced on the day of his inauguration as president when he proclaimed that fuel subsidy ‘has gone’. With such not well thought out policy and declaration, the price of petrol and other commodities in the market places rose spontaneously above the reach of the working people. The inflation rate today is about 34 percent. Food inflation is not left out, and this made access to food difficult for not a few; thereby causing the high level of hunger experienced in the country.
The failure of the policy and its consequences on the life of the working people did not stop the government in imposing other taxes such as increasing school fees to the level it is being difficult for children of the poor having access to education. The same scenario played out in the electricity industry that the price of consumption of energy has been increased even when there is short supply of the product to households and industries and no improvement is recorded in the production or generation and distribution of electricity power that rotate between 4000 and 5000kwt ever since.
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The latest in this pattern of fiscal policy of the Tinubu-led government is to introduce cybersecurity tax as well as taxing financial transactions made online as if it’s an offence to transact business online. Some argued in favour of this as a means of taxing the rich. But the fact remains that if this is allowed to pass, the poor will also be a victim even if they are exempted in the short term as this will be extended to them later.
If the government is serious in taxing the rich, why are they afraid doing this directly by taxing their properties, businesses and them as individuals, rather than this kind of alibi that their policy of hike in the price of fuel, electricity and online banking have the rich as their target.
Within a year of this government, we’ve experienced not less than five categories of taxation; whereas the wages of the working people remain stagnant. The minimum wage of workers in the 1980s stood at 200 dollars, today this is put at 20 dollars per month. These anti-poor policies in the name of taxation have to stop.
There is a correlation between this way of oppression and that launched on our forefathers by the colonial army of occupation, forcing them to pay tax. There’s also a point of departure between the two as the colonialist was out to use taxation as an instrument to force our people to embrace the new world of wage labour. The only means they could afford to pay tax. And if they were unable to pay, they would be sanctioned and criminalised.
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So, taxation was the beginning of wisdom. Karl Marx even described such a way of work as a wage slave as if he was reading the minds of African people thousands of miles apart. But our own bourgeoisie personified by Tinubu today are not troubled by taxing mass of unemployed people that account for over 150 million Nigerians. To them they don’t mind the youth to be involved in ‘yahoo-yahoo’, rituals, kidnapping, banditry, etc., so far as they are able to perform their obligation, which according to them, is in not reneging to pay their taxes whatever under any circumstances.
In turn, the bourgeoisie are able to rip off the poor working masses and their own treasury thereby made full to take care of paying their children’s school fees (in millions of naira) in advance, servicing fleet of their jets and carrying around not a few ladies that Awolowo referred to as ‘Osere’. There cannot be freedom without resistance. This oppression is too much.
Within a year of this government, we’ve experienced not less than five categories of taxation; whereas the wages of the working people remain stagnant. The minimum wage of workers in the 1980s stood at 200 dollars, today this is put at 20 dollars per month. These anti-poor policies in the name of taxation have to stop.
Comrade Olamosu is National Secretary, Socialist Labour (SL) and National Coordinator, Centre for Social Policy and Labour Research (SOPLAR).
