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Taxation works only where trust exists. In countries where citizens can clearly trace their tax payments to functional roads, quality schools, reliable healthcare, and social welfare, paying taxes is seen as a civic duty. In Nigeria, however, taxation has increasingly become a hard sell, not because Nigerians are unwilling to contribute, but because the state has repeatedly failed to uphold its end of the bargain.
At its core, taxation is a social contract: citizens pay, and the government delivers. Yet in Nigeria, taxpayers are asked to pay more while receiving less. While sub-national governments have continuously get more funds, roads remain death traps, public universities shut down intermittently due to strikes, and public hospitals lack basic equipment. Parents pay taxes and still fund private education; commuters pay taxes and still repair their vehicles weekly. The obvious question many Nigerians ask is simple: what exactly are we paying for?
This crisis of trust is worsened by weak institutions and poor administrative discipline. While countries with high tax-to-GDP ratios such as Denmark and other European states offer citizens free or heavily subsidized healthcare, education, and childcare, Nigeria offers little beyond tax reminders and penalties. The contrast is stark and impossible to ignore. High taxes without high-quality public services only breed resentment and non-compliance.
Recent controversies surrounding Nigeria’s tax laws have further exposed the fragility of the system. Revelations that multiple versions of the same tax laws were gazetted strike at the heart of legal certainty. Under the Acts Authentication Act 2004, the process of assenting to and gazetting laws is meant to be straightforward and foolproof, with harmonized, signed, and gazetted copies expected to be identical. The fact that this did not happen suggests not a minor oversight, but a systemic failure.
Honourable Abdussamad Dasuki deserves credit for bringing this lapse to public attention. His intervention has forced Nigerians to confront an uncomfortable reality: if the government cannot reliably publish its own laws, how can it expect citizens and businesses to comply with them? This is not merely a clerical error, it is a governance failure with real economic and legal consequences.
The confusion was compounded by public statements suggesting that the National Assembly had “ordered” a re-gazetting of tax laws. In truth, the legislature does not possess such powers. Gazetting is an executive function. At best, the National Assembly may request the withdrawal or correction of mistakenly published versions. Misrepresenting constitutional roles only deepens public skepticism and reinforces the perception of institutional disarray.
These developments could not have come at a worse time. Nigeria is aggressively seeking to expand its tax base and increase non-oil revenue. Yet tax reform without institutional credibility is bound to fail. People do not resist taxes merely because they are high; they resist them because they appear unjust, poorly managed, and disconnected from public benefit.
If Nigeria truly wants a compliant tax culture, enforcement alone will not suffice. The government must first fix its processes, ensure transparency in lawmaking, and demonstrate that tax revenues are visibly improving the lives of citizens. Trust cannot be legislated; it must be earned through consistency, accountability, and results.
Until then, Nigeria risks remaining trapped in a vicious cycle demanding more from taxpayers while giving them every reason to doubt the system. And no tax policy, no matter how well drafted, can succeed in a climate where trust is the missing currency.
Yusuf writes from Katsina.
SB E-news.
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