Last week, I began examining the erroneous assertion that poor Nigerians, especially those operating in the informal economy, do not pay tax. I showed, with examples from Lagos – and quoted empirical work done in the north – that poor Nigerians operating in the informal economy not only pay a large proportion of their income on tax daily, they suffer from multiple, illegal, and repressive taxation from different government agents or non-state actors. Examples exist in the southeast of Nigeria too. A report released by the International Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law in 2019 revealed that…
Author: Christopher Akor
At just 6 percent, Nigeria has one of the lowest tax-to-GDP ratio in Africa. This has led to the conclusion, in both academic and policy circles, that Nigerians do not pay tax, and the government has no capacity to collect tax and prevent leakages. Since the discovery of oil and the inflow of petrodollars, the government no longer required tax from its citizens to raise revenue, which often comes with a greater demand for accountability. So, during the period of the oil boom, the government virtually dismantled the system of taxation set up by the colonial government. Now that oil…
Shortly after being appointed minister of information late in 2015, Lai Mohammed went round the country meeting with members of the media, bloggers, and social media influencers to thank them for the roles they played in the election of his principal and to seek their continued support. In one of such meetings with selected newspaper columnists and opinion-writers at the Zen garden in Ikeja, Mr Muhammed pleaded with us to take it easy on the government and refrain from harshly criticizing the new administration. He also advised us to respect the office and person of the President and refrain from…
Sometime in May 2013, after a tough year of study at Oxford, three of us – an Englishman, a Spaniard and I – decided to go on a week’s vacation in Rome, Italy. It was on that trip it fully dawned on me what it means to be a Nigerian travelling around the world. We all checked-in online and printed our boarding passes at home. At Heathrow airport, while in line to board the plane, a lady attendant stood at the entrance smiling and courteously letting in all passengers once they have shown their passports and boarding passes. The moment…
Just like I predicted over many weeks on this page, Ethiopia’s fresh-faced prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, is now foolishly and needlessly putting the final touches to the dismantling of Africa’s oldest state. Through a series of missteps, childish errors and a rush of blood to the head, he has not only plunged Africa’s second most populous country and fastest-growing economy into a brutal, fratricidal, and unwinnable war, but most importantly, he has unsettled Ethiopia’s delicately balanced ethnic federation, destroying the basis of unity, peace and coexistence among the country’s disparate peoples. After the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) brushed aside…
For me, it was not the fact that young Nigerians were massacred at the Lekki toll gate on October 20 last year. Nigerians die daily in the hands of murderous security agencies and they don’t even make the news. It was the chilling deliberateness and planning of the massacre that bothered me. The government took great care to plan for the massacre of its own people. First, it ensured that the otherwise visible cameras at the tollgate were disabled, internet access to the area cut off, lights switched off and a curfew imposed to boot. Then came the massacres, the…
It took over 80 long years of relentless, bloody and tortuous battle to win the right to vote. But just 27 years later, this right, won at a bitter cost of thousands of lives, families and destinies, no longer count for much. At the just concluded local government election, only 28 percent of South Africans bothered to vote – the lowest such figures recorded since universal suffrage was adopted in 1994. What could have led to the level of political apathy in so short a time? Most analysts and journalists will be quick to point to the disappointing performance of…
Sudanese are back on the street once more in an attempt to salvage what remains of their revolution in 2019 that brought down long-time dictator, Omar al-Bashir. But they clearly underestimated the staying power of the rapacious regime and a thoroughly politicised and over-bureaucratised army that has supported al-Bashir’s brutal dictatorship for three decades. Even in 2019, the military moved swiftly to overthrow al-Bashir when he had been thoroughly weakened by the protests and his hold on power became untenable. But when it became clear that the protesters were unwilling to accept any military man as replacement for the ousted…
Three weeks ago I wrote about the ANC and the mismanagement of South Africa. The overwhelming response I got – and it is the consensus even in South Africa – that corruption firmly took hold of the African National Congress (ANC) during the presidency of Jacob Zuma. Current president, Cyril Ramaphosa reached that same conclusion when he admitted to the Zondo Commission – a high level inquiry into allegations of corruption and state capture in South Africa – that corruption was indeed rampant in the ANC under his predecessor. “State capture took place under our watch as the governing…
Fresh from his inauguration, Ethiopia’s Prime Minister and Nobel Laureate, Abiy Ahmed, has launched a staggering attack on the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), involving a combination of soldiers, drones, tanks and airstrikes and reigniting a devastating civil war that is imperiling the lives of hundreds of thousands and pushing Africa’s second populated country more and more to the brink. Since Ethiopia’s army’s devastating defeat in Tigray in July, the government has been on an enlistment drive, summoning all capable citizens to enlist in the armed forces to enable the government to unleash the “entire defensive capability” of Ethiopia…
Nigeria is into its 12th year of fighting the Boko Haram terrorist insurgency. Yet, there appears to be no sign of victory. It is safe to say the military and the insurgents are at a stalemate. Perhaps, the only time in the 12-year long war that it looks like victory was near was shortly before the 2015 elections when President Goodluck Jonathan secured the services of South African mercenaries or defense contractors to advise, train Nigerian soldiers and even lead the war against the insurgents both from the ground and air. With the change of government in 2015 however,…
Political parties are indispensable for the smooth functioning of democracy. Besides being vehicles for aggregation of interests and seeking political power, political parties perform the very important function of political communication and education of the citizenry. What is more, a strong party system ensures that the parties moderate contest for power amongst its members. So central is the political party to democracy that the late American Political Scientist, Elmer Schattschneider boldly proclaimed that “democracy is unthinkable save in terms of parties.” This is more so in a parliamentary system where the lines between the party and government are usually…
We were all shocked by the news of the demise of Dr Obadiah Mailafia, Nigeria’s foremost public intellectual, academic, central banker, national and international public servant and lately, a voice against the low-key genocide against the minorities of the north central states. He was said to have developed malaria-like symptoms (but not Covid-19 because he was fully vaccinated, and tests showed he was negative) about a week ago and was taken to the hospital. He never recovered and was pronounced dead, Sunday morning at the University of Abuja teaching hospital in Gwagwalada. Insinuations from his family suggest he was…
Last week I found myself reflecting on the aberration that is Nigerian democracy. We all agree that Nigeria returned to democratic rule in 1999 and has successfully had four different civilian administrations at a stretch. What is more, it has even peacefully transitioned from one political party to another. That, in some democracy scholarly parlance, is one of the prerequisites for being regarded as an entrenched democracy. However, like I have always argued, Nigeria and African countries under pressure to democratise the society and liberalise the economy have mastered the art of isomorphic mimicry – what Ricardo Hausman describes…
While the world’s attention is currently focused on Afghanistan, whose American-sponsored government collapsed spectacularly on the eve of America’s departure from the country, a much graver situation, with potentially huge consequences for global peace and security, is playing out, removed from global attention, in Ethiopia, a country of 112 million people and Africa’s second most populous country. The fresh-faced, Nobel laureate-winning Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed’s shocking belligerence has unsettled Ethiopia’s fragile ethnic federation and is threatening to tear apart one of Africa’s. Since coming to power in 2018, Abiy has been battling to contain discontent among Ethiopia’s diverse ethnic groups…
