By Abraham Ogbodo
The rest of us are not doing enough to help President Bola Ahmed Tinubu reform Nigeria. Here is a man who has promised to break the frontiers and take Nigeria to heights hitherto unattained in the long journey to nationhood. He had displayed this readiness on his very first day in office. Just by words of mouth, he got the downstream sector of the petroleum industry reformed. This was something that no past leader had attempted even with the full backing of the national armoury since the exploitation of hydrocarbon resources began in Nigeria close to seven decades ago.
He did not wait to take a fresh breath before switching to a new task. In the same breath, he spoke to the foreign exchange market to stabilise on a uniform rate and it came to pass. In just minutes, President Tinubu was able to pull through two miracles. Even under the Apostles, miracle working wasn’t that breathtaking. Time was allowed for the miracle worker to regain his breath. At the most, it was one miracle per day and not two in 10 minutes, as demonstrated by PBAT on May 29, 2023.
As I speak, government does not worry about payment of subsidy to fuel importers. This was more than a mere reform. It was a miracle that was given the wrong tag. Overnight, daily consumption of petrol by some 200 million Nigerians miraculously dropped by 50 percent; from 70 million litres to about 35 million litres. The impact, however, was direct and opposite. It brought more money to government and less money to the people. The celebration of this miracle, therefore, has remained mainly in government circles where money currently overflows like the waters of the Niger in July and September. The President and the Governors are happy because they have more money to spend to distinguish themselves from the prevailing anguish.
Let me explain why the new forex regime is also a miracle and not just a reform. Under the old order, wealth creation defied all the fundamentals. None of the factors of production was needed to hit it big in Nigeria. One only needed to know how to enter the Central Bank of Nigeria through the front door to receive convertibles at so-called official rates and leave the next moment through the back door to the black market to offload the receipts for bountiful returns. Even Adam Smith himself would be confounded by an economic process that created billionaires every second outside real production.
President Tinubu was not pretentious from the word go. He was very clear on what he wants to do with the economy and by extension, the polity. He has compressed the solution to all the macroeconomic complexities to just one thing – more money for government. Taxation is the ready answer. Experts may confuse us with definitions. But anything outside direct investment that gives government free money and so much of it is called tax. Put differently, tax or taxation is when a government or even an individual statutorily reaps where she did not sow. Even the fuel subsidy removal and the floating of the exchange that have been hyped in the toga of reforms are taxes by another name. They have brought free money to government that is causing an ailment described in street parlance as ‘’too much money.’’
However, on taxation proper, PBAT deserves some accolades. For the first time, someone has picked the courage to ask the North to pay for its choices. I am saying that to redistribute the accruals from VAT in accordance with the principle of derivation is a big deal. That way, those who forbid eating chicken can be advised to forbid eating eggs also. Or at least, they should learn that eggs are broken to prepare omelette.
Consumption tax on tobacco and alcohol cannot be so sweet outside the actual production and consumption of both items. This sits well from the point of equity. The idea of a regional baked cake for national consumption has endured for too long. I guess the point with the new tax law, regarding especially VAT redistribution, is for people to cook together and then eat happily together. Even if we must share to sustain the brotherhood, the host should determine what is put on the guest’s plate.
But that is not where the problem lies with the tax policies of PBAT. The man is searching everywhere for people and things to tax. There are constant threats of new taxes. The one called petroleum tax, that threatens to return us to captivity in Babylon, is only in abeyance following public outcry. It can be surreptitiously invoked when the atmosphere gets cool enough for its operation. The banks are reportedly on instruction to flag credit balances exceeding five million naira so that the appropriate tax options can be worked out for the account holders.
This is how it stands today. Investments are taxed. Savings are taxed. Consumption is taxed. Profits are taxed. Losses are taxed. Productivity or creativity is taxed. Lack of it is taxed. Nigerians now live to pay taxes. And it is taxation without representation. Nothing from government assuages the pains of these arbitrary fiscal impositions. The state of social and physical infrastructure pushes back the responsibility of government on the overtaxed individual who constantly worries over good health care, education, public electricity, safety of life and property, access roads, potable water, mass transit, public sanitation and so on.
Administratively, these are very bold steps. In fact, they are unprecedented. No President or Head of State before President Tinubu had had the courage to take them. This is why some people are calling him a performing reformer. It does not matter if the reforms are more in their sheer audacity than they are in their impact. I do not have any problem with the new name of PBAT. I even noted earlier that he is more than a John Calvin in reformation efforts. He has been working miracles. A man who has trod where angels dreaded to walk cannot be casually understated.
In context, President Tinubu has performed three major miracles since his advent on May 29, 2025, as President and Commander-In- Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Although I had mentioned them earlier, I shall recap for better understanding.
His first miracle was turning subsidy to substance. This is almost like changing water to wine. One estimate says over N20 trillion was paid as subsidy on fuel between 1973 and 2023 of which about N17 trillion was paid between 2015 and 2023; the eight years that Mohammadu Buhari was President. The second miracle, which was performed minutes after the first, was exchanging the naira for a small change in dollar. This is so much so that one does not need more than two thousand dollars to become a multi-millionaire in naira. The third miracle is spiral taxation amid depression and retrogression.
In their combined effects, these miracles have turned ours into a voodoo economy where the people’s adversity translates to government’s prosperity. The poorer the people, the richer the government becomes. It is only in our clime that inflation is precipitated by money scarcity. Families and businesses now borrow to pay tax under the Tinubunomics.
The idea of big government in a depression to inflate production commands a different interpretation in Nigeria. It is not as intended by John Maynard Keynes in advancing the concept of Multiplier during the Great Depression. Under Tinubu, taxation means increasing the paraphernalia of governance and government so that state actors can spread like peacocks in an environment of absolute lack.
Even so, hope is not completely lost. Since he likes delivering reforms that bear the content of miracles, PBAT can attempt one more miracle before 2027 to up his credentials in that department. And if he does this and very well too, his justification as a reformer, miracle worker and indeed the builder and saviour of modern Nigeria will be total. His place in history will be assured and outstanding.
Let me come straight. I am talking of electoral reforms. Those are the kind of reforms that will be done and they will be seen as miracle by the ordinary man walking on Bourdillon Road, Ikoyi, Lagos. It is in the electoral system that reforms or miracles are really needed. And if the miracle in this area is delivered, every other miracle needed to rebuild a fractured Nigeria will definitely fall in place. All these other reforms in petroleum subsidy, exchange rate and taxation are not necessary. Achieving electoral reforms is like seeking first the kingdom of God. The refrain is that, all other reforms shall be added unto you.
To deliver pains as gains in this unending circus show called reforms is not only fraudulent but wickedness in high places and of the highest order. It is more painful when the pains are not in anticipation of a better tomorrow but a product of a warped imagination, and at best, an ego trip to carve out a distinctiveness that is not necessary in purposeful leadership. Here is, therefore, a call to refocus the reformer.
