Charles Omole’s newly launched book on the Muhammadu Buhari presidency titled “Soldier to Statesman: The Legacy of Muhammadu Buhari,”has detonated like a carefully placed charge beneath Nigeria’s political establishment. Though my ordered copy remains in transit, the reverberations from its revelations—and more tellingly, the reactions it has provoked—tell us everything we need to know about the fragility of our governance structures and the dangerous personalization of power that continues to plague this nation.
The allegations and disclosures reportedly contained in Omole’s work have sent shockwaves through political circles, not merely because they are sensational, but because they apparently lay bare the fundamental dysfunction at the heart of recent Nigerian governance. The book’s reception, characterized by defensive outrage from some quarters and knowing nods from others, reveals a nation that has become dangerously accustomed to leadership opacity. What the reviews and public discourse since it’s launch demonstrate is that Nigeria remains trapped in a vicious cycle: we elevate individuals, even those not elected to positions of immense power, grant them near-imperial latitude, then express theatrical shock when we discover that unchecked authority has been exercised in ways contrary to the national interest.
This pattern must end. The Omole book, whatever its ultimate historical verdict, serves as yet another clarion call for the structural transformation of Nigerian governance. We must transition from a system that allows individuals to set themselves up against the nation’s interest—whether through incompetence, malice, or the simple reality that power without institutional constraints inevitably corrupts—to one where robust institutions provide the guardrails in preventing such a concentration of power on individuals.
The case for institutional deepening in Nigeria is not abstract theory; it is existential necessity. Consider what apparently transpired during the Buhari years: decisions made or deferred, appointments that privileged loyalty over competence, policy paralysis masked as integrity, and the concentration of power in informal networks rather than constitutional structures. These are not failings unique to one man or one administration—they are the predictable consequences of a system designed around personalities rather than processes.
Strong institutions would have prevented many of the alleged missteps documented by Omole. An empowered civil service, insulated from political interference, does not wait for presidential whim to implement policy. An independent judiciary, properly resourced and respected, does not allow executive overreach to go unchallenged. A legislature conscious of its co-equal status does not rubber-stamp executive proposals or remain silent in the face of governance failures. A free press, protected by law and practice, does not wait for post-tenure exposés to reveal what should have been reported in real-time.
Yet Nigeria’s institutions remain weak by design. We have created a hyper-presidency where success or failure hinges almost entirely on the character, capacity, and circle of whoever occupies Aso Rock. This is not governance; it is a lottery, in local parlance it is kalokalo and governance has become similar to a set of odds. And the Nigerian people, regardless of ethnicity, region, or religion, deserve better than to have their futures determined by chance.
Which brings me to Nasir El-Rufai’s response to the Omole book—a response that, despite coming from a man I admire greatly for his intellect and administrative competence, fundamentally misunderstands the nature of democratic accountability.
El-Rufai’s criticism of the book appears to rest on several premises, all of which deserve interrogation. The first seems to be that there is something inherently unseemly or disloyal about former insiders publishing accounts of their time in government. This is untenable. When Muhammadu Buhari—or any Nigerian—chooses to seek and accept the presidency, they voluntarily enter the public sphere in its most intense form. The office belongs to the people, not its temporary occupant. Everything done in that capacity, every decision made, every word spoken in official capacity, becomes part of the public record and subject to public scrutiny. This is not cruelty; it is democracy.
To suggest otherwise is to argue for a cult of silence that protects power from accountability. It is to claim that those who serve in government owe greater loyalty to their principal than to the Nigerian people who are the ultimate employers of every public servant. This is precisely the mentality that has enabled decades of unaccountable governance.
El-Rufai’s second apparent premise—that such accounts are not balanced and that the book was meant to serve the interests of one faction against the other faction—is equally flawed. Nigeria cannot afford to wait for a village/ umunna / kindred meeting of sorts between these factions before one can give his verdict, particularly when the consequences of governance failures are being lived in real-time by millions struggling with insecurity, economic hardship, and diminished opportunities. The urgent work of learning from our mistakes, of understanding what went wrong and why, cannot be postponed for the sake of seeking balance which may not occur on its own, it takes the efforts of persons like Professor Omole to do such and perhaps provoke the other side to air its own story.
El-Rufai ought to have suggested that those with alternative accounts should write their own books. The marketplace of ideas works best when multiple perspectives compete, when different participants in the same events offer their interpretations, and when the public can weigh competing narratives against available evidence. Omole has contributed to this marketplace; others, including El-Rufai, should do likewise rather than attempting to delegitimize the very act of bearing witness.
But come to think of it, can Nigerians ask El Rufai if he sought this balanced point of view when he published his book the “ Accidental Public Servant” that is with barbs and the exposures the book exhibited? Haba Sir!!!
Moreover, the Omole book, from all accounts, is not a simplistic character assassination of Buhari as a person or leader. It is, rather, an attempt to document what occurred during a consequential period in Nigerian history. That the buck stopped at Buhari’s desk is not Omole’s invention—it is the constitutional reality of presidential systems. If uncomfortable truths emerge from that documentation, the appropriate response is not to shoot the messenger but to grapple with the message.
The fundamental issue revealed by this entire episode transcends Buhari, Omole, or El-Rufai. It is this: Nigeria will not progress significantly until we stop organizing our political life around the mythology of the strong man who will save us, and instead build institutions strong enough to constrain bad leaders and enable good ones. We need systems where competence is rewarded over connection, where merit trumps loyalty, where processes matter more than personalities.
This means constitutional reforms that genuinely distribute power. It means judicial independence backed by budgetary autonomy. It means a professional civil service with security of tenure. It means a legislature that understands itself as a check on executive power, not an adjunct to it. It means transparent processes for appointments, procurement, and policy-making. It means protecting whistleblowers rather than persecuting them.
Until we undertake this institutional reconstruction, we will remain trapped in an endless cycle: messianic expectations, inevitable disappointment, recriminatory revelations, then the search for the next savior. The Omole book is merely the latest chapter in this tragedy. Let it be a catalyst for the fundamental change we desperately need—the building of a republic that works regardless of who temporarily leads it.
Merry Christmas my dear readers, may the joys and hopes cradled in the Christmas Story be ours as a nation and a people.
Mr. Reno Omokri deserves to be congratulated on the Nigerian Senate’s confirmation of his ambassadorial appointment, in spite of vehement opposition from some quarters to his nomination. He is a lawyer, a former Special Assistant on New Media to former President Goodluck Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and an avid supporter of former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar’s 2023 bid to be president of the country.
An American missionary, Mike Arnold, who claimed to know Reno Omokri closely, said that the nominee was not fit for appointment as an ambassador, because “He was accused of sexual harassment by Sen. Natasha Akpoti at a State House event.” This allegation was in an open letter by Mike Arnold to the Nigerian Senate, and was widely circulated on social media and reported in various other media outlets on 2 December, 2025. Meanwhile, in a 22 March, 2025 X post addressed to The Economist (of London) and titled, “In the interest of transparency, please balance your coverage”, Reno Omokri had denied the allegation.
In the X post, he had written: “Senator Akpoti accused me of sexually harassing her at Aso Rock Presidential Villa, during a reception held for the visiting Kenyan President, Uhuru Kenyatta, when he visited Nigeria between May 4 and May 7 2014. … [D]uring those dates, I was sent to the United States of America as President Jonathan’s special envoy. I met and was photographed with multiple U.S. officials, including State Department officials, in Washington, D.C.”
Moreover, in a 21 September, 2025 YouTube interview with Laolu Akande, on Channels Television’s Inside Sources, Reno Omokri stated that, for the journey, he had “a first class British Airways ticket … which I had to go and ask British Airways to send to me proving that I was not in the country on May 6, 2014 when President Jonathan hosted President Kenyatta to a state banquet and also showed my passport with a stamp from US immigration.”
Raising the Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan issue in relation to the nomination therefore seemed to be what Ambassador Gbara Awanen called “emotional rhetoric” and “the weaponisation of past, failed accusations” in a 30 November, 2025 article in The Nation, titled “Why Tinubu must reject media trial of his ambassadorial nominees.” In the article, the ambassador was principally defending the nomination of his fellow Ambassador Ayodele Oke, a former Director General of the National Intelligence Agency.
Moreover, in a 1 December, 2025 Arise News assessment of the ambassadorial list, Dr. Reuben Abati had, using innuendo (or indirect reference), said: “You may well post some people to some countries and they go there and carry placards, depending on where the wind blows. Even they may carry placards against Nigeria.” More directly, Seun Okinbaloye of Channels Television, in an 11 June, 2025 YouTube interview titled “Reno Omokri defends support for Tinubu …,” referred Reno Omokri back to a protest he led against then-presidential-candidate Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and at which the nominee referred to Asiwaju in derogatory terms at Chatham House in London on 5 December, 2022.
Seun Okinbaloye asked him why he switched to supporting President Tinubu after the election. To the question, Reno Omokri replied: “Well, there’s a saying, ‘Results cancel insults.’ … We had a manifesto which I was part of putting together. That’s the Peoples Democratic Party presidential manifesto. We said we were going to do certain things. The first, we were going to remove fuel subsidy. The second, we were going to float the naira. The third, we were going to devolve power from the federal government down to the local levels. And then, we were going to have students loans. All of these things we said we were going to do, President Bola Tinubu is doing them, and he began doing them from day one. … So, when I saw the results [of what] the President was doing, I decided that, okay, this is a man to be supported.”
In a 30 November, 2025 post, one of the very prominent Facebook staunch supporters of the president, Sunday Wale Adeniran (#SWA), wrote: “Yes, Reno worked against Tinubu as Atiku’s spokesperson but after the election, I do not know of anyone who has supported this government and promoted the nation Nigeria with more facts and figures than Omokri. This man presents his thoughts clearly backed with historical, political and economic facts that no one has ever succeeded in controverting. He also promotes our culture pro bono like no one else.”
Indeed, whenever I see Reno Omokri in his beautiful Nigerian attire, which he dons with pride, I remember the late Ambassador Olusegun Olusola of “The Village Headmaster” fame who passed away on 21 June, 2012. Sometime before his demise, in one television interview, Ambassador Olusola advocated for the active promotion of Nigerian culture, especially Nigerian fashion, as a feature of soft power on the African continent. Possibly without knowing it, Reno Omokri has been living Ambassador Olusola’s dream, even beyond Africa.
It is therefore understandable that #SWA submitted: “Reno does not only deserve an ambassadorial appointment, he [also] deserves to be posted to one of the biggest players on the global stage. He is going to be one of the best representatives of this country since independence.”
Like #SWA, Iluo-oghene, who self-identifies as a legal practitioner, poet and political analyst, noted on Facebook, on 30 November, 2025, in a post titled, “Political currency of usefulness”: “[T]he rant about Tinubu nominating Reno Omokri and Femi Fani-Kayode [FFK] as ambassadors is funny to me. … Politicians act from a strategic place, and nobody gets a seat for being a saint, but for being useful. Tinubu didn’t pick Reno and FFK because he ‘forgave’ them. He nominated them because they are not just useful, but of extreme value and influence.”
She further declared: “Since Tinubu’s emergence, Reno has defended him like Kilode [i.e., unimaginably]. During Donald Trump’s recent political circus with Nigeria’s sovereignty, Reno [fought] tooth and nail, countering misinformation internationally. Call him dramatic, cunning, a liar or annoying …, but the man is brilliant and markets Nigeria well. Now, that’s the core job of an ‘Ambassador’. … Reno and FFK earned that spot, fairly.”
On the point that Reno Omokri had called President Tinubu horrible names in the past, Iluo-oghene responded: “And so? … [N]ot everyone who criticizes the president is against him, and not everyone who publicly praises him is for him. Some critics are only playing a role, while some supporters are just acting a script.” If a person has been betrayed before by close ‘saints’, should it be strange if that person then somehow tolerates distant ‘sinners’?
In fact, at a point in time when President Tinubu and the government were under immense attack, Reno Omokri, like FFK, stuck his neck out in their defence, even when some of those who were under moral obligation to speak out kept a timid or treacherous silence. According to an anonymous quote on Instagram accessed on 8 December, 2025, “Not everyone creating problems is visible. Sometimes the real enemy hides in silence.” Moreover, the famous late African-American civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said perceptively: “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
Another lady argued powerfully in support of Reno Omokri’s nomination, resisting hisses and rendering other attempts to interrupt her ineffectual, at an explosive debate on the topic “Ambassadorial nomination list of Reno Omokri, Femi Fani-Kayode and Prof. Mahmood Yakubu by President Tinubu, glory or shame?” posted on YouTube by Gana@Ganaonlinetv on 4 December, 2025. The lady said: “Majority of people who have problem with Reno are the most unaccountable set of people you can ever meet. … I knew Reno even before Tinubu became president. He was really against the president. … But he was accountable enough to [carry out] his research and also come back to debunk every allegation, every false allegation.”
She continued: “None of you here markets Nigeria like Reno. …. Not [even] me. … Irrespective of who is in power, Reno has always been patriotic. Reno has always been intellectual. Reno has always [engaged in] proper debate, intellectual debate, backed with data, backed with research. None of you here can match him when it comes to that level. … He’s very qualified to be an ambassador for Nigeria.”
Reno Omokri is an efficient counterforce to political hot-air-blowers and social media killjoys. And what does he have in his tool box? A capacity for deep and extensive research, courage and rational arguments. With these, he defended the election that brought President Tinubu to office against those, like Peter Obi and his supporters, who naggingly insinuate or claim that the Independent National Electoral Commission, led by Professor Mahmood Yakubu, manipulated the 2023 presidential election to declare Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu winner.
Reno Omokri knocked down the argument in a 30 November, 2025 post on Facebook. He said: “As for the conduct of the election, all international observers publicly stated that the polls reflected the will of the Nigerian people. For example, the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labour of the US Department of State, stated as follows: ‘National elections were widely reported to have reflected the will of voters.’ Moreover, as I said privately to people in the Peoples Democratic Party before the election, if in 2019, when the PDP was united, we could not defeat the All Progressives Congress, how could we hope to vanquish them in 2023, when we had splintered into four. … It was just a matter of common political sense to know that Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu would win the election.”
Reno Omokri further addressed Peter Obi directly: “You, sir, challenged his victory at the Presidential Election Petition Court, and in your pleadings, you did not state that you won the election. Rather, you pleaded that the then President-elect was not qualified based on a conviction, not winning Abuja, and sundry other flimsy reasons which were thrown out by the courts all the way to the Supreme Court, which spent less than five minutes dismissing your appeal.” In effect, Reno Omokri also defended Professor Mahmood Yakubu against the charge that his current ambassadorial nomination is a reward for ‘making’ Tinubu president.
With the Senate confirmation of Reno Omokri’s ambassadorial nomination, in spite of stout denunciation, he needs to remember constantly that he has a point to prove, and that to whom much is given, much is expected. The whole controversy also underscores the significance of recognising, irrespective of the issue, the existence of alternative perspectives. In fact, as Amber Veal counselled: “Before you argue with someone, ask yourself, ‘Is that person even mentally mature enough to grasp the concept of different perspectives?’ Because, if not, there’s absolutely no point.”
Last week quietly but firmly reinforced a pattern that has come to define the presidency of Bola Ahmed Tinubu: decisive action often happens away from the klieg lights, while public appearances are reserved for moments that signal direction, intent and resolve. As the President himself explained at the National Caucus of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), much of his time had been consumed by behind-the-scenes work, so intense that he initially yielded the speaking slot to his deputy, Kashim Shettima. That admission, far from suggesting absence, underscored a governing style that prioritises outcomes over optics.
Yet, when Tinubu did step forward publicly during the week, the engagements were anything but routine. Thursday’s APC National Caucus meeting and Friday’s National Executive Committee (NEC) session became platforms for one of the clearest articulations yet of how the President intends to deploy the ruling party’s expanding political muscle to achieve long-delayed structural reforms. In essence, Tinubu is signalling that the numbers now available to him across Nigeria’s political architecture must translate into constitutional compliance, institutional restructuring and, ultimately, better lives for ordinary Nigerians.
At the heart of this push is the long-stunted third tier of government: the local councils. Although Nigeria operates a federal system with three constitutionally recognised tiers, local governments have for decades been reduced to administrative appendages of state executives. That imbalance was formally addressed in July 2024, when the Supreme Court of Nigeria delivered a landmark judgment granting financial autonomy to local government councils. The ruling, historic in its clarity, promised to restore grassroots governance by ensuring councils receive allocations directly.
However, as Tinubu bluntly noted, judgments do not implement themselves. Despite the federal government’s readiness to enforce the ruling, resistance from state governors has largely confined the verdict to what many describe as a “show glass”;admired but untouched. It was this impasse that the President confronted head-on at the APC Caucus.
Speaking not just as Head of Government but as leader of a party that now dominates much of the federation, Tinubu appealed, and warned, in equal measure. Local government autonomy, he insisted, “must be effective,” stressing that autonomy without direct funding is meaningless. “There is no autonomy without funded mandate,” he declared, adding that direct allocation to councils is not a favour but a constitutional obligation flowing from the apex court’s decision.
The subtext was unmistakable. With 28 of Nigeria’s 36 governors now members of the APC’s Progressive Governors Forum and the ruling party commanding about 65 per cent of the Senate and 57 per cent of the House of Representatives, Tinubu believes the political conditions are ripe to fix structural distortions that previous administrations either avoided or lacked the leverage to tackle. Numbers, in this context, are not for celebration; they are instruments for reform.
That confidence was further revealed when the President spoke of his discussions with international partners on security sector reform. Tinubu disclosed that he had assured counterparts in the United States and Europe that Nigeria would pass the long-debated state police framework. When asked if he was confident, his response was telling: he has a party to depend on. The implication is clear, constitutional amendments and sensitive reforms that once seemed politically impossible are now within reach because the ruling party controls the levers that matter.
Friday’s NEC meeting sharpened the message. Tinubu moved from persuasion to unmistakable resolve, making it clear that compliance with the Supreme Court judgment on local government autonomy is non-negotiable. Any attempt to delay, dilute or sabotage direct funding to councils, he warned, would be treated as defiance of constitutional order. In one of his most pointed remarks, the President suggested that if governors wait for an executive order, “because I have the knife, I have the yam,” he would not hesitate to act. It was a metaphor laden with authority, and intent.
Beyond fiscal federalism, the President framed party discipline and internal accommodation as essential to sustaining the reform agenda. A ruling party as large as the APC, he cautioned, cannot afford intolerance or exclusion at the grassroots. Ward and local government politics, often dismissed as routine, are in fact the engines that determine whether reforms reach the people or stall in capital cities.
This emphasis on grassroots governance also resonated in Tinubu’s mid-week engagement with leaders of Ogbia Kingdom in Bayelsa State. Hosting the delegation at the State House, the President acknowledged the Niger Delta’s long history of neglect and its immeasurable contributions to Nigeria’s economic survival. Yet he was equally firm that progress cannot be achieved by dwelling endlessly on past injustices. What matters now, he argued, is collaboration with an administration prepared to act.
Describing the Niger Delta as “the goose that lays the golden egg,” Tinubu struck a balance between empathy and pragmatism. Yes, the region had been shortchanged; yes, successive governments failed it. But the path forward lies in partnership, not perpetual grievance. His assurance that infrastructure development would continue, coupled with praise for Niger Delta indigenes serving in his administration, reinforced a message of inclusion within a broader national restructuring effort.
Earlier in the week, the President’s appearance at the re-presentation of the biography of Muhammadu Buhari added a more personal dimension to his leadership narrative. Paying tribute to his late predecessor, Tinubu spoke not merely as a successor but as a friend and political ally who understands loyalty beyond the tenure of office. In celebrating Buhari’s belief that public office is a trust rather than a windfall, Tinubu subtly aligned that ethic with his own reform drive, one anchored in discipline, restraint and institutional respect.
Beyond the party caucuses that provided the most explicit platforms for the President to lay down his restructuring markers, the rest of the week revealed a presidency operating on multiple tracks at once, security, economy, institutions and human relationships, each reinforcing the same central objective: making Nigeria work, not in fragments, but as a coherent state.
On Friday, the President presented the 2026 Appropriation Bill to the National Assembly after convening an emergency, one-item meeting of the Federal Executive Council. That sequencing was deliberate. Budgets, in Tinubu’s reform logic, are not ceremonial documents but instruments of restructuring. By tightening fiscal assumptions and insisting on coordination between the executive and legislature, he signalled that economic stabilisation, security spending and grassroots development must align with the broader federal reset he is pushing through politics and law.
The same logic underpinned the decisive shake-up in the petroleum regulatory space. The resignation of Farouk Ahmed and Gbenga Komolafe, followed by the nomination of new chief executives for the NMDPRA and NUPRC, came after months of tension in the oil and gas sector, amplified by the bruising confrontation with the Dangote Refinery. Tinubu’s intervention was less about personalities than control and clarity. By asserting authority over regulators created under the Petroleum Industry Act, the President demonstrated that strategic sectors will not be left hostage to regulatory drift or institutional turf wars. Energy reform, like fiscal federalism, must serve national interest, not bureaucratic comfort.
Security and regional diplomacy also featured prominently. On Sunday, addressing ECOWAS leaders, Tinubu warned that coups, terrorism and transnational crime demand a united West African response. Speaking through Vice President Kashim Shettima, he reminded the sub-region that porous borders make isolation impossible. The message was consistent with his domestic push for state policing and decentralised security: modern threats require shared responsibility, whether among Nigerian states or West African neighbours.
Mid-week, the President’s late-night engagement with labour leaders and governors ahead of a planned protest over insecurity reflected another strand of his leadership, preventive dialogue. Rather than allow tensions to spill into the streets, Tinubu chose engagement, reinforcing his belief that stability is best preserved through consultation, not force.
The remainder of the week was punctuated by gestures that humanise power without diluting authority: condolences to Bayelsa over the death of Deputy Governor Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo; tributes to the late former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Tanko Muhammad; and the mourning of industrialist Michael Ponnle. His congratulatory messages to Ifeanyi Ararume, Prof. Segun Gbadegesin, Bisi Olatilo and Dr Olusanya Awosan reflected continuity with Nigeria’s political, intellectual and media traditions, even as reforms press forward.
Taken together, the events of the week reveal a President consciously leveraging the newfound strength of his party to address Nigeria’s most stubborn structural flaws. From local government autonomy and state policing to party discipline and regional reconciliation, Tinubu is making the case that political dominance must serve constitutional order and social progress, not complacency.
For the ordinary Nigerian, the implications are profound. Functional local governments mean services closer to the people. Reformed security architecture promises safer communities. Cooperative federalism opens pathways for economic inclusion. And a ruling party aligned behind these goals reduces the friction that has historically stalled reform.
In this sense, last week was not about spectacle. It was about positioning, quietly but firmly, Nigeria closer to the vision of a functional, stable and respected nation. For President Tinubu, the message is consistent: the time for excuses has passed; the numbers are there; the responsibility is unavoidable. The task now is to turn political strength into national renewal.
One critical question that I had contended with for sometime as a public service institutional reformer is, why it has been so very difficult to institute performance-oriented values and systems (PMS) to alter the inherited ‘I am directed’ traditional public administration tradition in the civil service in Nigeria. Indeed, implementation of PMS has been largely rhetorical, entailing moving in circles since the Jerome Udoji Public Service Reform Commission reforms first attempt in 1974. Why is this so? One, civil servants generally take on their job as career, largely because of job security. They therefore would generally resist any reform that threatens their jobs, even if such reforms are in the public interest. This attitude translates, for all practical purpose, into a general dislike for change and an unreflective defense of the status quo
Two, civil servants are accustomed to a tradition of ‘wait for your turn’ to gain seniority within hierarchical structures, and therefore value the respect and authority that their positions carry jealously. This orientation contrasts with performance management’s need to reward individual initiatives, creativity, authority of knowledge, and proven expertise, while rewarding officers based on evidence of performance, usually measured as outputs, outcomes and impact within results-based management frameworks. Three, in any governance context and administrative environment where entitlement mentality prevails, where cultural practices of patronage and nepotism that would usually override merit on the altar of ethnic, religious and sectional parochialisms prevails. One where personal connections and loyalty influence appointments with brazen disregard for merit as is common in our clime, it is usually difficult to achieve the flexibility that enables the fairness and objectivity required for a performance-based system to function effectively. Let us now proceed to put this set of theoretical statements in context, to explain how the failure to institute performance-based systems in the Nigeria’s public administration system over the years has, in part, been responsible for Nigeria’s arrested development
Let me start with an axiom that has guided my reform optimism about the Nigerian state and the unfinished business of institutional reform. That axiom is that there is definitely no shortage of development visions, blueprints, development ideas and paradigms, well-intended policies and programs, or even expert or professional advisory support. As a public service institutional reformer and policy implementation researcher, I recognize all these as the very first step in the trajectory of getting reform done. Thus, while consecutive Nigerian governments could be said to have a surfeit of the visions and ideas that ground institutional reforms with varying levels of impacts, the momentum that translate these visions, ideas and paradigms into efficient institution and transformative development progress has been missing.
Unfortunately, the institutional and developmental impacts have been less than salutary because of the lack of the political will that backstops the success of any reform effort. This is the second level of the reform business that unlock the possibility of success. We can all agree, without prejudice, that many Nigerian governments have played bad politics with development programs. By this I mean that Nigeria’s political orientation, from independence till date, has made it extremely difficult to achieve the right composition of elite nationalism that triggers national development. First, there is the problem of policy short-circuiting due to administrative discontinues—each government always desires to reinvent the political and administrative wheels rather than building on the foundations the previous administrations have laid. Most fundamental is the lack of any genuine ideological bases for political parties that connect to an overarching philosophical construct for rethinking national integration and national development. Since 1999, when Nigeria’s resumed her democratic experiment, politicking has been more about trivial issues of religion and ethnicity than that of issue-based discourse on taking Nigeria seriously.
In institutional reform terms, therefore, we have been witnessing political administrations who have been entrapped in the conception-reality gap in the sense that they have demonstrated some real passion for institutional reforms, given the availability of outstanding ideas, insights and blueprints. However, the passion lacked deep knowledge that could have enabled the governments to intimately and critically interrogate the binding constraints that limit and undermine institutional reforms in the public sector change space as well as the institutional architecture that the space represents. This failure makes it very impossible for these governments to recognize the devils in the details of development policy execution. This conception-reality gap is further complicated by the ready default of prebendal culture of primitive accumulation that color elite nationalism. This makes it difficult for any successive administration in Nigeria to take a gamble on development by initiating development bargains around which the Nigerian Project could have taken off efficiently and with the right dose of political will to raise the possibility of success.
From an institutional reform perspective, many of Nigeria’s past governments have moved from electoral victory to administrative performance to unlock the dividends of democratic governance without a thorough knowledge of the binding constraints that requires dismantling within the governance, administrative and institutional dynamics of the Nigerian state and its public service. Thus, every effort to ignite structural and developmental transformation has remained futile. From the technical angle of policy and development management, therefore, Nigeria has been benchmarking failures through change management initiatives that have been marred by several limitations: poor policy and programme design; poor resource allocation; unstable macroeconomic climate not matched with required policy intelligence and analytics; lack of disciplined and performance managed development policy and programme execution; policy and programme discontinuity; low public service organisational intelligent quotient (IQ) and sub-optimal institutional capability readiness; and the wide-ranging sociological and cultural issues generally summed up as the Nigerian Factor.
However, when the Tinubu administration was inaugurated, His Excellency, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu wisely opted for performance management as the best means by which to manage the Renewed Hope Agenda. And to achieve this, the president compelled key policy players to sign a performance bond. The administration further appointed Hadiza Bala-Usman to oversee the structural nodal point for implementing and tracking the trajectory of institutional performance. Whatever the process is called—performance bond, agreement or contract—it signals a political willingness on the part of government to achieve a measure of performance and productivity through a judicious attempt to get the best out of the people, infrastructure, financial and material resources deployed by the MDAs. This will be achieved through a systematic set of actions that link the Renewed Hope Agenda’s policy goals and national development objectives with the performance and productivity expectations from the MDAs in terms of sector strategies, performance budgeting, improvement plans, targets, data, workplans, key performance indicators, training and capacity development, etc. And to achieve the utmost productivity, corrective measures in terms of rewards and sanctions are equally put in place when performance improves or falls short.
By opting for the performance management system, the Tinubu administration has keyed into a global best practice. From Florence Nightingale’s effort, in 1861, to instigate the publication of medical statistics in London hospitals and the impact of this on the British civil service, to F.W. Taylor’s scientific management method that facilitated process improvements on factory floors, performance management has come a long way. By the time colonial rule was over and Nigeria had keyed into the inherited administrative traditions of the British civil service system, Nigeria had adopted the formal personality-based assessment models, the most popular of which is the annual performance evaluation report (APER) form. Unfortunately, this template would soon degenerate into oblivion because of its flaws bordering on its subjective limitations. And high-performing civil service systems across the world would later revise and supplement it by other rating instruments and scales, including psychometrics, 360-degree peer review feedback, Management by Objectives (MBO), critical incident techniques, behaviorally anchored rating scales (BARS), assessment centers, project-based appraisals, self-assessments, competency-based reviews, narrative appraisals, and many more.
For the Nigerian civil service system, the Udoji Commission report recommended and introduced the planning, programming, budgeting system (PPBS), that ensured that MDAs and their performances were framed in terms of programmes and strategies rather than line items. The Commission also introduced the management by objectives (MBO), and later the zero-based budgeting. At the global level, and under the prodding of the new public management, performance management planning and implementation would soon be enriched and upgraded at many critical and technical points to demonstrate the complexity of measuring performance in an increasingly complex administrative world. The Kaplan and Norton Balanced Scorecard (BSC) became significant in the public sector because of its revolutionary shifting of performance scorecard away from the traditional focus on the very narrow financial considerations to a broader and more comprehensive assessment founded on four variables—financial, customer, innovation/growth, and internal processes. This has been followed by other performance management features, from value for money audit and service delivery units to performance-based pay and sanction and citizens charter.
Despite the perspicacity of the Tinubu administration in opting for the implementation of performance management system, there is still a fundamental question an institutional reformer is forced to ask. Are the MDAs’ structural, procedural and institutional dynamics capability ready for the performance-oriented change process? Are they prepared to shoulder the burden of performance management? Why, despite our best reform efforts, has it appeared as if the civil service system is just gyrating on an axis without any appreciable progress? The performance management dynamic of the civil service system in Nigeria has been dominated by the fixation with the APER template and some underlying assumptions. These have to be deconstructed to even begin to reinvent the performance management system that will anchor the Renewed Hope Agenda. First, therefore, we need to make it very clear that staff performance evaluation that the APER takes care of, is not the same thing as performance management. The annual performance appraisal is merely a one-off evaluation criterion which barely add any value to a staff’s promotion score. It is therefore just a key but not too significant component of performance management.
On the contrary, performance transcends staff appraisal. It involves a continuous cycle of monitoring and reporting of performance against certain set targets, goals, and objectives. To foreground performance as the basis for evaluating the MDAs, the Renewed Hope Agenda has to concretize a performance system that instigate performance monitoring, evaluation and reporting based on (a) whether or not the MDA is doing what it is supposed to do in terms of outputs, impacts and outcomes; (b) articulate gap identification in the MDAs that enables them not only to evaluate and learn but also to improve their performance; and (c) institute a reward and sanction system as a basis for rewarding high performance, and sanctioning low performance.
As a paradigmatic shift away from the traditional Weberian and “I-am-directed” bureaucratic system, performance management transcends technical and technocratic design, roll-out and training, and speaks rather to the necessity of transforming work and workplace culture, behavior and attitude in ways that emphasize outputs through the baselining of quality information and data system with the capacity to produce high-quality data in timely manner. This then enables the MDAs to develop strategic plans, like the medium-term sector strategy (MTSS) which stipulate quantitatively measurable goals, objectives, performance indicators and how they are to me achieved.
To therefore concretize the firm resolve of the Tinubu administration to frog leap the civil service system into an efficient mode through the adoption of the performance management system, more is required. The performance system must first be squared with the existing dynamics of technology, capacity, governance and technology. It is not just sufficient to introduce the system in a discrete manner that fails to cohere with the existing overall civil service limitations and possibilities in terms of structures and institutions. Here, the Offices of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation (OHCSF) and States Heads of Service will need to play a crucial role as nodal points in coordinating the strengthening of the monitoring and compliance dimensions of the performance management system in the central personnel agencies. This will facilitate not only the institutionalization of performance as an accountability tool, but also the necessity of unifying its dynamics and procedures across the MDAs. The second most significant step in the institutionalizing of the performance management system is the need to integrate it with the existing and reformed component of the human resource management. This will be two-sided. On the one hand, it will involve the HR processes of recruitment, promotion, training and deployment that articulate the significance of leadership pipelining and talent management for the civil service. On the other hand, there is also the imperative of a consequence management system that regulates performances and challenges through, for instance, a performance bonus or the establishment of a challenge fund that motivates performance. This must also be coupled with a service-wide capacity building workshop and training program, especially supervisors, to determine a schedule for periodic impact assessment. The Federal and States Ministries of Budget and Planning, OSGF/OSSGs, Bureau of Statistics, Civil Service Commissions, government training institutions, and, of course, the Office of the Special Adviser to the President on Policy and Coordination, etc. have pivotal roles in PMS implementation. Their roles are multi-layered and integral, making PMS inter-ministerial partnership as one irreducible critical success factor in its implementation to explore in great details. Exploration of the dimensions to the latter, is beyond my mission in this contribution, as it is far more nuanced and technical.
The Renewed Hope Agenda has taken off to a good start. It is a declared intention to shun bad politics in the articulation of a governance framework that is founded on solid institutional reform blueprint that will deliver the stated goals of the Tinubu administration. What I have done in this piece is to outline the structural and institutional components of the performance management system that will backstop the success of the Agenda. It is the last mile towards good governance.
– More than 10m elderly Nigerians now at risk of worsening poverty
Fourteen years after Nigeria’s First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu (CON) proposed a comprehensive bill towards tackling the welfare challenges confronting Nigeria’s elderly population, bureaucratic red tape, legal frameworks and budgetary constraints are still stifling the initiative.
According to a 2022 World Bank estimate, Nigeria has approximately ten million people above 60 years of age and approximately 6.5 million above 65 years.
While the corridors of the National Assembly and venues of government events are currently buzzing with high-minded rhetoric about honoring the “labours of our heroes past,” a cold reality permeates the streets outside: for millions of elderly Nigerians, growing old is becoming synonymous with becoming invisible.
The Nation’s findings show that despite what seem to be constitutional guarantees, Nigeria’s laws and budgetary allocations appear very unfair to the elderly and according to activist, Moses Adedeji of Child Rights Network (CHRINET), “current legal architecture for elderly care is built on a foundation that is legally shaky.”
Section 16(2)(d) of Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution mandates the State to provide “old age care and pensions but it falls under Chapter 2 – the Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy – a chapter which legal experts have long argued to be non-justiciable as no citizen can sue government for failing to provide it.
Currently, Nigeria’s strongest legal framework for elderly care is the NSCC Act of 2017 that established the National Senior Citizens Centre, the first corporate body mandated to identify and cater to the needs of senior citizens.
However, while the Act allows the Centre to initiate health and social programs, critics point out that without a dedicated, heavy-weight social security fund attached to it, the Centre risks becoming a purely administrative body rather than a welfare-dispensing one.
Current concerted moves by both the Senate and the House of Representatives for the new “Older Persons (Rights and Privileges) Bill, 2025” appears to be very promising but an in-depth critique of the existing legal framework, the national budget, and the sheer demographic reality of over 14.8 million persons aged 60 and above, reveals a widening chasm between legislative intent and the actual delivery of welfare.
Altogether, data from various pension sources indicate that less than 11% of the Nigerian workforce participates in the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS), with the implication that the roughly 9 out of 10 Nigerians currently working mostly in the informal sector, will retire with zero formal pension savings.
Also, projections associated with the National Senior Citizens Centre (NSCC), shows that Nigeria is home to over 14.8 million persons aged 60 and above.
Current data on Nigeria’s poverty rate suggests that roughly 70% of this demographic falls into the “poor” or “vulnerable” category, lacking access to regular income.
On-going fragmented efforts include the National Assembly’s new effort to pass the Rights for Older Persons Bill aimed at making welfare justiciable (suable) rather than just a policy objective while the executive is working through the NSCC, to try to operationalise the National Policy on Ageing and the National Social Safety-Nets Coordinating Office (NASSCO) is continuing to expand the National Social Register to capture more vulnerable households for the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programme.
Reps push stronger rights, welfare guarantees for elderly Nigerians
The House of Representatives on Wednesday revived national attention to the plight of elderly Nigerians, as lawmakers moved to tighten welfare guarantees and expand legally enforceable rights for senior citizens who, according to Speaker Abbas Tajudeen, “have been left far too long at the mercy of a collapsing family support system.”
The Speaker spoke at a public hearing on the Older Persons Rights Bill, a proposed legislation seeking to secure free medical care in government hospitals, tax reliefs, monthly stipends for indigent seniors, and a suite of protections against neglect and discrimination.
The session, organised by the House Committee on Women Affairs and Social Development chaired by Hon. Kafilat Ogbara (APC, Lagos), drew wide participation from ministries, pension regulators, and social protection agencies.
Said Speaker Abass: “Our older people now face abuse, marginalisation and deprivation. This Bill will bridge that gap by creating a formal and enforceable structure of protection.”
The Speaker faulted existing legislation — including the National Senior Citizens Centre Act (2018) — for failing to respond to the specific vulnerabilities older persons face. He also argued that constitutional safeguards against discrimination under Section 42 do not fully address injustices based solely on age.
He described the proposed law as “a progressive step that aligns Nigeria’s social welfare system with contemporary realities.”
The draft makes provisions for free medical care in government hospitals, tax exemptions for older citizens, monthly stipends for indigent elderly persons, legal safeguards against abandonment and neglect as well as civil and social rights that ensure inclusion and dignity.
Tajudeen stressed that Chapter Two of the Constitution — which outlines socio-economic obligations of the state — is not enforceable, making a specialised law for the elderly necessary.
Committee chair, Hon. Ogbara, framed the Bill as a moral and civic obligation.
“As we know, older persons face unique challenges that affect their health, economic stability, and social participation. This legislation is designed to confront those issues head-on and guarantee their rights as citizens who still have value to contribute,” she said.
Stakeholders push for amendments, warn against gaps
Regulatory agencies welcomed the Bill but called for clarity, harmonisation and stronger financial architecture.
The representative of National Social Investment Programme Agency (NSIPA), Nsikak Okon, urged lawmakers to ensure the Bill aligns seamlessly with the NSCC Act to avoid operational conflicts.
PENCOM, represented by Martins Ikagu, described the move as a “positive step for social security” but flagged several clauses — including 2, 3(2), 4(1), 5, 17(1), 30, and 38(2) — for revision.
He raised concerns about: Funding sources for the proposed monthly stipends
· Lack of guidance on where the funds would be domiciled
· The need to specify MDAs involved in social protection
· A clause excluding existing pension beneficiaries, which he argued may violate Section 42 on discrimination
Ikagu also recommended that participation in a social security scheme be compulsory for all employed Nigerians, formal and informal, to ensure long-term sustainability.
On the provision requiring 25% of the national minimum wage as monthly stipends for indigent seniors, he insisted that “clear and codified funding mechanisms are necessary to avoid implementation failures.”
He also flagged a drafting issue in Clause 17(1) on accessibility aids, urging lawmakers to review the phrasing for coherence.
Elderly Care: A test of political will
Budget analysts note that broader social protection considerations occupy only a tiny slice of a budget that years of accumulated burdens has shaped into prioritizing security and debt service with the implication that the fiscal headroom for quick expansion of elderly services is limited.
Also, coverage is narrow and uneven as the contributory pension scheme largely benefits those who worked in the formal sector and who had contributions lodged into Retirement Savings Accounts that tends to exclude a large numbers of older Nigerians who are informal traders, subsistence farmers, domestic workers and many women who provided unpaid care.
Where pensions do exist, beneficiaries still face practical obstacles: delays in payment, opaque arrears procedures and sometimes difficulty in proving entitlement; even though PenCom and pension administrators have made reforms and public statements about improved payments and the handling of accrued rights, complaints about delays and gaps persist.
Outside pensions, there is no universal non-contributory old-age (social) pension in Nigeria – a regular cash transfer to all older citizens regardless of past employment; proposals and draft bills have circulated for years but there is not yet a nationwide automatic pension for all elderly citizens
The Ogbara Committee is expected to collate stakeholder submissions, refine the draft, and present a harmonised report to the House for further legislative action.
For millions of older Nigerians watching from the fringes of an unforgiving economy, the outcome could determine whether their twilight years are lived with dignity — or further neglect.
The Older Persons Rights Bill is one of the most ambitious attempts in recent years to address the vulnerability of ageing Nigerians, many of whom live without pensions, health coverage, or reliable family support.
If passed, the law would situate Nigeria among African countries moving toward formalised, enforceable welfare guarantees for the elderly.
But as one senior committee aide told The Nation, the real battle will be at the budgeting stage:
“Everyone agrees older people deserve dignity. The challenge is finding the money — and the political will – to make these promises real.”
Spokesperson of the National Senior Citizens’ Centre, Abdulfatai Otori, spoke with The Nation on efforts being made by NSCC to address the welfare of elderly citizens.
Healthcare and Social Care
The NSCC has conducted comprehensive medical outreach programmes across various states, offering free laboratory tests, routine check-ups, and surgeries for conditions like cataracts and glaucoma. We also distribute assistive devices such as wheelchairs, hearing aids, and guide canes to improve mobility and independence.
A key focus is the development of a skilled geriatric social care workforce, with the first cohort of certified caregivers having completed their training in August 2025.
The most recent medical outreach in collaboration with the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Reduction which held in Jos, Plateau State in commemoration of the International Day of Older Persons, provided hundreds of senior citizens with free healthcare services, including general medical consultations, eye screenings, surgeries, as well as the distribution of essential medicines. Assistive devices such as walking aids were also provided to improve mobility and independence.
Earlier in the year, over 500 elderly persons from the 31 local government areas in Akwa ibom state also benefited from a free medical outreach.
NSCC is also partnering the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to protect the rights of older persons in Nigeria. This collaboration includes joint initiatives to combat abuse, advocate for protective laws, and integrate the concerns of senior citizens into national policy and development frameworks.
NSCC is actively adopting a multi-sectoral, sector-specific approach to older persons’ welfare. This strategy involves targeted programmes across different areas like health, income security, and social engagement, rather than a single, general solution.
Continuing Engagement Bureau (CEB)
Through this programme, NSCC connects skilled retirees from both formal and informal sectors to opportunities for continued valuable contributions, either through volunteerism or paid employment, to supplement earnings.
Pensions
The NSCC is also working with the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) to ensure pensioners receive correct and timely payments and to include older persons in a national social protection policy for potential cash transfers.
Over the last several years the National Assembly has taken a number of legislative and oversight steps to recognise and support older Nigerians, most notably the National Senior Citizens Centre Act, and, in 2025, both chambers have moved again to expand statutory protections, social care and health benefits for the elderly.
But experts and advocates say the legal framework has not yet translated into consistent, nationwide access to cash support, healthcare relief or guaranteed services for many older Nigerians.
For instance, as a former Senator representing Lagos Central, the First Lady, Mrs Oluremi Tinubu, sponsored a Social Security Bill in 2012, which aimed to provide a social safety net for vulnerable citizens, including the elderly.
The objective of the Bill was to create a formal system for supporting the less privileged, especially the elderly, with the aim of alleviating poverty and improving quality of life for vulnerable populations. The bill passed its second reading in the Senate in March 2012 and was referred to relevant committees for further review. However, it was never passed by the Senate.
In 2022, the Senate passed a bill to establish the National Social Security Commission. The bill sought to “provide a comprehensive legal and governance framework for the proper administration and management of all-inclusive, integrated, preventive, promotive and transformative national social security regime.”
It was aimed to put in place a national social security protection funding to take care of the needs of the unemployed, elderly and underaged children below 18 years from broken marriages.
However, the Bill neither gained concurrence from the House of Representatives nor was it assented to. Similarly, the Senate passed the Older Persons (Rights and Privileges) Bill 2020. The Bill on Older Persons (Right and Privileges), according to Senator Betty Apiafi, who was then chair of the Senate Committee on Women Affairs, was aimed at addressing the social and economic challenges triggered by aging and the need for government to formulate policies that would incorporate the elderly and cater for their well-being. The Bill, she said, further provided for a fine of N2 million or N200,000 from organisations or individuals respectively found to have discriminated against older persons.
She had said: “Without prejudice to this Bill, any prosecution, conviction or otherwise of any person for any offence under this Bill, does not preclude the right of the victim to maintain a civil action against any such person committing the offence or causing injury.”
“Government shall ensure that older persons enjoy the right to adequate standard of living, including the right to food, water, clothing and housing and to improve their living conditions without discrimination on the basis of age. Government shall ensure the provision of seats in walkways, other public facilities specifically designed for the comfort of older persons.”
However the Bill was not assented to.
What exists now: law, centre and policy: National Senior Citizens Centre Act (2017/2018).
The National Senior Citizens Centre was established pursuant to the National Citizens Center Act 2017 with mandate to identify the needs of senior citizens and to cater for them. It is the first distinct national corporate body with focus on social inclusion of senior citizens in sustainable development and the improvement of the quality of living and well-being for self-fulfillment. NSCC is to identify opportunities for trainings to enhance capacities of senior citizens, initiate, facilitate and implement educational, health and social programmes, productive activities and work schemes in order to provide income or otherwise supplement earnings of senior citizens. NSCC is to also ensure the provision of recreation, sports and counseling programmes, all aiming to enhance dignity, independence, security and care of Nigeria’s senior citizens.
Although the law sets out the NSCC’s functions but it does not itself create a national pension top-up or universal cash transfer targeted only at older persons.
Also, the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, produced a National Policy on Ageing in 2020 that sets priorities for health, social protection and inclusion of older persons and cross-references the NSCC Act as the institutional anchor for ageing policy in Nigeria.
This year, the House of Representatives held public hearings and begun consideration of a bill aiming to “guarantee social and civil rights” of older persons. The Bill proposed measures such as free medical care in public hospitals, tax exemptions, stipends for indigent older persons and stronger safeguards against abandonment or neglect.
Speaking at a public hearing on a Bill seeking to provide certain rights for Older Persons to ensure health and economic relief and protection for their social and civil rights organised by the Committee on Women Affairs and Social Development, Speaker Tajudeen Abbas, said many of these social benefits were previously covered by traditional family support systems.
Abbas said the House resolved to provide a formal legal structure that would protect the aged from abuse. He said: “This Older Persons (Rights and Privileges) Bill has become necessary because existing legislations, like the National Senior Citizens Centre Act, 2018, have not fully taken care of the peculiar needs of older persons and their rights are constantly abridged by others – from family members to public institutions and the rest of society.
“This Bill is, therefore, an attempt to provide comprehensive protection for the specific rights of older citizens and meet our obligations towards safeguarding their welfare.
“Section 42 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999, as amended, guarantees certain inalienable rights for every Citizen and forbids the discrimination of persons on the basis of religion or race or gender, but it fails to cover the peculiar injustices that old people suffer simply because they are old.”
“The Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy in Chapter 2 of the Constitution also make provisions for the well-being of citizens, but they are not obligations that are justifiable or enforceable.
“In sum, current policy and legal frameworks for the protection of old people are either fragmented or incomplete, and mostly cannot be enforced by the courts. This Bill not only hopes to address a wider range of issues, including social and economic challenges, but also to provide a legally binding framework for older people.
“The important thing here is that old people are now to be protected by legally enforceable rights, and they can hope to get restitution from the courts if these rights or entitlements are breached. It is a very progressive bill which seeks to bring the social welfare programme available for old people up to date. “It examines the pressures that joblessness, loneliness, neglect, insecurity, poverty, retirement, and health challenges foist on the aged and make provisions for safeguards and benefits that will enable them to live better.”
Proposed provisions in the Bill include free medical services in government facilities, some forms of tax exemption, stipends, and protection against abandonment.
“Many of these were previously covered by traditional family support systems, but as those weaken, we must provide a formal legal structure that will protect the aged from abuse,” Abbas said.
The Chairman of the House Committee on Women Affairs and Social Development, Kafilat Ogbara, said the provisions of the Bill “reflect on our collective responsibility to ensure that our older population receives the dignity, respect, and support they deserve. I call it The Society Giving Back”.
She added: “As we know, older persons often face unique challenges that can affect their health, economic stability, and social engagement. This legislation aims to address these issues head-on by establishing a framework that guarantees their rights and protections.
“House Bill 2098 seeks to ensure health and economic relief for older persons, recognising that access to quality healthcare and financial security are fundamental human rights. It also emphasises the importance of protecting their social and civic rights, allowing them to participate fully in society and contribute their wisdom and experience.”
The National Coordinator of National Social Investment Programme Agency (NSIPA), Badamasi Lawal, said the Older Persons Bill, 2025, under consideration should be harmonised with the National Senior Citizens Centre Act, 2018 for ease of operationability in supporting Older Persons in Nigeria.
Speaking on behalf of the National Pension Commission (NPC), Martins Ikagu described the proposed legislation as a positive development which would further strengthen and expand the legal framework on social security in Nigeria.
If passed by the House, the Bill will require the concurrence of the Senate and ultimately the assent of the President to become law.
The week-long celebration, which began on Tuesday, December 3, featured a series of activities and climaxed on Saturday with a grand finale filled with glitz and glamour.
Old students dressed in elegant traditional attires converged on the school premises to commission several landmark projects executed by the association under the leadership of the immediate past President, Professor Kolawole Kazeem.
The Elegboro of Ijebu Jesa, Ọba Moses Oluwafemi Agunsoye (Abikehin Ekun Agunsoye II), commended the old students for their dedication and commitment to giving back to the institution that shaped them.
Ọba Agunsoye, himself an alumnus of the school, applauded the association for upholding and promoting the legacy of excellence for which the school is known.
He further urged other alumni to join hands in supporting the continuous development of the school to sustain its standards and good reputation.
Delivering the anniversary lecture titled: “Building the Culture of Learning and Character From the Base,” Professor Julius Abiola Ademokoya emphasised that secondary school is the bedrock of character formation.
He noted that indiscipline left uncorrected at this stage becomes difficult to reverse later in life.
Projects commissioned during the celebration included an indoor sports hall, a Sick Bay, solar-powered street lights, a multipurpose basketball court, and a newly constructed perimeter fence, all donated by the old students.
The Celebration continued at a community Event Centre where alumni gathered for a dinner and awards night.
The atmosphere was filled with joy as distinguished old students, both living and departed were honoured for their contributions to the association and the school’s development.
The Paramount Ruler of Ijesaland, Ọwá Obòkun Adimula, H.I.M. Clement Adesuyi Hastrup, who also received an award, praised the alumni for their commitment to the school.
Pa Jaiyeoba, one of the school’s pioneer graduates, and Chief Joshua Olufunsho, a former teacher, both testified that Ijebu Jesa Grammar School has produced outstanding individuals who continue to make significant contributions to society.
In the meantime, the newly elected Global Executives of the School under the leadership of High Chief Olutise Isaac Adenipekun has assumed office.
The Executive Council will run the affairs of Ijebu-Jesa Grammar School Old Students’ Association for the next two years.
For millions of Nigerian children, the classroom is often a battlefield—against poverty, distance, and the relentless cost of learning. In Lagos, Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man and founder of the Dangote Group, unveiled a bold intervention: a ₦100 billion annual education initiative—more than ₦1 trillion over the next decade—crafted not as charity, but as a strategic, long-term investment in talent, opportunity and the nation’s future, reports Associate Editor Adekunle Yusuf
Nigeria’s education crisis rarely announces itself with sirens. It unfolds quietly—in students who do not return after a term break, in families forced to choose between school fees and survival, in talents lost not to failure but to cost. Aliko Dangote, founder and CEO of the Dangote Group, placed a bold wager against that silence. On Thursday last week in Lagos, Africa’s richest man, announced a ₦100 billion annual commitment to education—more than ₦1 trillion over the next decade—not as charity, but as a deliberate attempt to keep Nigerian futures from slipping out of the classroom.
What Dangote unveiled was neither symbolic nor episodic. It was a long-horizon intervention designed to confront the structural pressures pushing millions of young Nigerians out of school. From 2026, the Aliko Dangote Foundation’s Education Support Initiative will extend to all 774 local government areas, expanding steadily until it supports more than 155,000 learners each year. By the end of its first decade, an estimated 1.3 million students will have passed through its reach—each one a quiet rebuttal to the idea that poverty should determine who gets to learn.
The Presidency wasted little time in placing the initiative in context, calling it the largest private education support programme ever launched in Nigeria and a decisive boost to the Federal Government’s human capital development agenda. In a country where public education has long been strained by funding gaps, overcrowded classrooms and economic shocks, the announcement landed as both a relief and a challenge: proof of what is possible, and a reminder of what remains undone.
Dangote’s voice, calm and deliberate, returned repeatedly to a single point—that the greatest barrier confronting Nigerian students is not intelligence or ambition, but money. Fees accumulate, transport costs mount, materials are unaffordable, and eventually many families are forced to choose survival over schooling. “This is not only charity. This is a strategic investment in Nigeria’s future. Every child we keep in school strengthens our economy. Every student we support reduces inequality. Every scholar we empower becomes a future contributor to national development. Our young people are not asking for handouts. They are asking for opportunities. They are asking for a chance to learn, to grow, to compete and to succeed. And we believe they deserve that chance,” he said.
The Foundation is designed with surgical precision, targeting the points at which Nigeria’s promise too often falters. In public universities and polytechnics, tens of thousands of undergraduates in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics will have their tuition fully covered, ensuring that financial barriers no longer truncate ambition or cut short the careers of the country’s most talented young minds. These students, whose curiosity and drive have long collided with fees and paperwork, will now be able to pursue their studies unimpeded, their potential aligned with opportunity.
Yet the intervention does not stop at classrooms or lecture halls. In technical and vocational institutions, 5,000 students annually will receive funding not only for tuition but also for the tools, materials, and specialised training that transform education into employable skill. By complementing the Federal Government’s policy of free TVET tuition, the programme ensures that learning translates into competence, and competence into livelihood. In these workshops and laboratories, Nigeria’s future craftsmen, engineers, and technicians will no longer be constrained by cost—they will be equipped to build it.
For girls in public secondary schools, the Foundation reaches even earlier, at a stage where the threat of dropout is most acute. The MHF Dangote Secondary School Girls Scholars programme—named for Dangote’s daughters Mariya, Halima, and Fatima—will support 20,000 girls each year, from junior secondary through senior school and into tertiary education. Prioritising states with the highest numbers of out-of-school girls, the initiative tackles one of the nation’s most stubborn inequities. In regions where poverty, early marriage, or domestic demands have long curtailed education, the programme offers continuity, opportunity, and hope, turning fragile years into a bridge toward ambition, resilience, and empowerment. Together, these complementary strands—STEM, technical skills, and girls’ education—form a network of support that is at once unprecedented in scale and transformative in purpose, ensuring that talent, not circumstance, defines Nigeria’s next generation.
Yet Dangote was careful to stress that students alone do not make a system. Teachers do. Classrooms do. Expectations do. Understanding that the impact of education is only as strong as the instruction that shapes it, the Foundation has designed the Dangote Teacher Training Programme, a large-scale initiative that begins with 10,000 secondary-school STEM teachers in 39 government colleges attended by MHF scholars. These educators will receive intensive training, equipping them with modern pedagogical methods, subject mastery, and the tools to inspire curiosity and critical thinking. But the vision does not stop there: the programme is set to expand across all six geopolitical zones, creating a nationwide network of skilled, motivated teachers capable of transforming classrooms into engines of learning. The objective is not merely to keep students enrolled, but to ensure that every hour spent in school is meaningful, every lesson empowering, and every teacher a catalyst for the intellectual and personal growth of Nigeria’s next generation.
For Dangote, this focus on education is both a continuation and a deepening of a philanthropic philosophy that has guided the Foundation for more than three decades. Health, nutrition, economic empowerment and humanitarian relief have all featured prominently in its work, but education, he said, remains the axis around which national progress turns. No nation rises above the quality of education it offers its young people. Education is the most powerful equaliser, the surest engine of social mobility, the difference between inherited circumstance and chosen destiny.
That conviction shaped the tone of his remarks. Nigeria’s young people, he insisted, are not asking for handouts. They are asking for opportunity—for a chance to learn, to grow, to compete on equal terms and to succeed. Financial hardship must not be allowed to silence their dreams, not when the country’s future depends on their skills, resilience and leadership. The initiative, he added, is a starting point, not a solution in isolation. Government, the private sector, communities and families all have roles to play, and only collective effort can deliver lasting transformation.
If Dangote’s words framed the moral case, Vice President Kashim Shettima supplied the demographic urgency. Nigeria’s population growth, he warned, makes investment in education not optional but indispensable. “A population becomes a liability only when it is uneducated,” he said, describing the initiative as the single largest private-sector education intervention in the nation’s history and a masterclass in nation-building. In his telling, the programme exemplifies a form of patriotism that measures greatness not by accumulated wealth but by the number of lives lifted from the shadows into the light.
Shettima situated the intervention within a broader landscape of reform under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration, pointing to the Nigerian Education Loan Fund, expanded basic education infrastructure, strengthened tertiary funding and renewed attention to technical and vocational training. These efforts, he said, are designed to improve Nigeria’s standing on the Human Capital Index and prepare young people for a skills-driven global economy. Dangote’s contribution, structural and long term, aligns seamlessly with that ambition.
Education Minister Tunji Alausa echoed the sentiment, calling the initiative “pure human capital development.” Its nationwide reach, touching every local government area, marks it out as both symbolic and practical. Over a decade, he noted, the secondary-school girls’ programme alone could enrol an estimated 170,000 students, a significant stride toward closing Nigeria’s stubborn gender gap in education and accelerating the shift from a resource-based to a knowledge-based economy.
From the states came assurances of partnership. Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, speaking on behalf of his colleagues, praised Dangote for once again choosing purposeful leadership. Wealth, he observed, offers many options; Dangote has repeatedly chosen to deploy his in service of national development. Nigeria, he said, would remember that choice.
The breadth of support extended beyond government. Traditional rulers, educators and development leaders all found in the initiative a rare convergence of scale, intent and execution. His Highness Justice Sidi Dauda Bage, Emir of Lafia and chairman of the Programme Steering Committee, described the commitment—more than ₦1 trillion over ten years—as unprecedented. The multiplier effects, he suggested, would ripple far beyond the 1.3 million direct beneficiaries, reshaping human capital, social indicators and economic prospects for decades.
The Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi, Ojaja II, framed the initiative as both transformational and strategic, recalling moments when the Foundation had intervened during crises in his own community. In education, he suggested, Dangote is again applying private-sector resolve to public need, investing not only in people but in the conditions that allow societies to heal and grow.
From beyond Nigeria’s borders, the endorsement carried a global note. Speaking virtually from the United States, United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed said the scheme would create an enabling environment for children to learn and families to prosper, reinforcing the link between education, stability and sustainable development.
Behind the speeches lies a meticulous operational plan. The Foundation intends to deploy a fully digital, merit-based system for verification, disbursement and monitoring, working with institutions such as NELFUND, JAMB, NIMC, NUC, NBTE, WAEC and NECO. Outcomes will be measured not only in enrolment numbers but in retention, completion and post-school impact. Sustainability, Dangote disclosed, is anchored in his formal commitment to dedicate 25 per cent of his wealth to the Foundation, with progress to be reviewed in 2030 as part of the Dangote Group’s Vision 2030 strategy.
The initiative also builds on a substantial educational footprint already in place: university hostels across several states, early-learning programmes in Kano that have reached thousands of children, a dedicated school for orphaned girls in Maiduguri supported by an annual ₦500 million commitment, and a multi-billion-naira pledge to upgrade a state university in Wudil. What is new is the scale and the coherence—the sense of a system being assembled rather than isolated projects being funded.
As the event drew to a close, Dangote turned his attention to the young Nigerians at the heart of the endeavour. Their dreams matter, he told them. Their education matters. Their future matters. The Foundation believes in them, is investing in them, and is committed to ensuring that they do not walk the journey alone. In a nation often weighed down by statistics of what is lacking—classrooms, teachers, funding—the announcement offered a counter-narrative rooted in possibility. It suggested that education, properly financed and thoughtfully delivered, can convert Nigeria’s vast youth population from a looming liability into a decisive asset. The true measure of the initiative will emerge over years, in graduations quietly attended, skills steadily acquired, and lives redirected by the simple fact of staying in school.
On January 1, 2026 Nigeria will quietly cross a fiscal threshold that could reshape the relationship between the state and its citizens. While fireworks and countdowns mark the beginning of a new calendar year, a far more consequential transition will unfold beneath the surface: the take-off of a new tax regime designed to recalibrate how government raises revenue, enforces compliance and funds development in Africa’s largest economy. For a country long trapped between ambitious spending needs and chronically weak revenue mobilisation, the reforms represent both an opportunity and a risk, depending on how effectively they are implemented. Assistant Editor Nduka Chiejina reports
For decades, Nigeria’s tax system has been defined less by what is written in law and more by what happens in practice. Despite successive reforms, tax revenue has remained stubbornly low, hovering around 9 to 10 per cent of Gross Domestic Product, far below the African average and a fraction of what comparable emerging economies generate.
The consequences have been severe: limited fiscal space, ballooning public debt, rising debt-service costs and an overreliance on oil revenues that fluctuates with global prices and geopolitics. Each economic shock — from oil price crashes to the COVID-19 pandemic — has exposed the fragility of this model.
Against this backdrop, the new tax regime taking effect at the start of the year is being presented by policymakers as a turning point. It is not a single law or policy, but a bundle of interlinked changes aimed at widening the tax net, simplifying administration, improving transparency, reducing leakages and aligning Nigeria’s tax framework with the realities of a digital, services-driven economy. At its core is the recognition that Nigeria can no longer fund governance on oil rents alone, nor can it continue to place a disproportionate tax burden on a narrow segment of compliant businesses and workers.
Central to the reform drive is a renewed focus on efficiency and coordination among tax authorities. For years, businesses and individuals have complained about multiplicity of taxes, overlapping mandates between federal, state and local authorities, and aggressive enforcement practices that discourage investment and voluntary compliance. The new regime promises clearer rules, improved harmonisation and a stronger reliance on technology to reduce human discretion and corruption. Whether these promises translate into everyday reality remains an open question.
Equally important is the readiness of the institutions charged with implementing the reforms. From the Federal Inland Revenue Service to state internal revenue services, customs authorities and other regulatory bodies, capacity constraints have long undermined policy ambitions. Weak data systems, limited interoperability, inadequate staff training and resistance to change have slowed past reforms. As the new tax framework takes off, attention is shifting from policy design to execution: are the agencies prepared, the systems tested and the personnel equipped to deliver?
There is also the question of trust. Nigeria’s tax-to-GDP challenge is not only a technical problem but a social one. Many citizens remain sceptical of paying taxes in a system where public service delivery is uneven and accountability often questioned. Roads, schools, hospitals and security are still largely self-provided by households and businesses. Without a visible link between taxes paid and services received, compliance becomes a hard sell. The new tax regime, therefore, carries an implicit social contract: that improved revenue collection will be matched by improved governance.
For the private sector, the reforms signal both relief and adjustment. While simplification and clarity could lower compliance costs in the long run, the transition period may bring uncertainty as businesses interpret new rules, update systems and engage with tax authorities. Small and medium-sized enterprises, many of which operate informally, face a particularly critical moment as government intensifies efforts to bring them into the tax net without stifling growth or innovation.
Why Nigeria’s Tax System Needed a Reset — And What Is Changing Under the New Regime
Nigeria’s new tax regime did not emerge in a vacuum. It is the product of years of fiscal stress, structural weaknesses and growing recognition that the old framework had reached its limits. For much of the past two decades, the country’s tax architecture struggled to keep pace with economic realities, demographic pressures and the rapid transformation of how Nigerians earn, spend and invest. By the time policymakers settled on a comprehensive reset, the cracks had become impossible to ignore.
At the heart of the problem was a paradox. Nigeria consistently recorded one of the lowest tax-to-GDP ratios in the world, yet millions of households and businesses complained of being overtaxed. The contradiction stemmed from a narrow tax base and uneven enforcement. A small pool of salaried workers and compliant companies carried the bulk of the burden, while vast segments of economic activity remained informal, lightly taxed or completely outside the system. The result was not only weak revenue but deep resentment and widespread tax fatigue.
Multiplicity of taxes compounded the problem. Across federal, state and local governments, overlapping levies, fees and charges proliferated, often with little clarity on legal backing or accountability. Businesses faced demands from multiple agencies for similar taxes, while individuals encountered arbitrary enforcement practices that blurred the line between taxation and harassment. In many cases, revenue collection was outsourced to third parties whose incentives were tied to aggressive extraction rather than fairness or due process. This environment discouraged investment, undermined voluntary compliance and eroded trust.
The structure of consumption taxes also raised equity concerns. Value Added Tax applied broadly, including on items that made up a large share of household spending, such as food, education and healthcare. For low- and middle-income Nigerians already squeezed by inflation, these taxes were regressive, reducing purchasing power and worsening living standards. At the same time, the system offered limited reliefs that meaningfully reflected household realities, such as rent, healthcare costs or education expenses.
Corporate taxation presented a different but equally serious challenge. While headline tax rates appeared competitive on paper, compliance costs were high, incentives were fragmented and opaque, and smaller businesses often found themselves trapped between informality and punitive regulation. Many small and medium-sized enterprises operated outside the tax net not by choice, but because the cost of compliance outweighed perceived benefits. This stunted growth, limited access to finance and entrenched informality.
It was against this background that Taiwo Oyedele, Chairman of the Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reform Committee designed the new tax regime as a reset rather than a patchwork adjustment. Central to the reforms is a shift in philosophy: away from extracting more from the same taxpayers and towards broadening the base while reducing the burden on those least able to pay. The reforms explicitly reject the idea that higher taxes are the answer to Nigeria’s revenue challenge. Instead, they aim to collect better, not simply collect more.
One of the most far-reaching changes put forward by the Committee is the recalibration of personal income tax. Under the new framework, low-income earners are either exempt or face significantly reduced tax liabilities. Individuals earning the national minimum wage or below fall outside the tax net entirely, while annual incomes up to defined thresholds attract zero or minimal tax. For middle-income earners, tax rates are reduced to ease pressure on disposable income at a time when living costs remain elevated. In effect, the system tilts toward progressivity, ensuring that the burden rises with capacity to pay.
Consumption taxes are also being restructured with equity in mind. The removal of VAT on basic food items, education and healthcare marks a significant departure from past practice. These categories account for a large share of household expenditure, particularly among low-income families. By zero-rating or exempting them, the reforms aim to lower the cost of living and reduce the inflationary impact of indirect taxes. Rent, public transport and selected energy-related items are similarly treated to cushion households and support broader economic stability.
For businesses, especially at the lower end of the scale, the changes are even more pronounced. Small companies below defined turnover and asset thresholds are exempt from corporate income tax and VAT obligations, effectively lowering their cost of entry into the formal economy.
Under the Nigeria Tax Act (NTA) 2025, a small company is defined by the following criteria:
Annual Gross Turnover: Not exceeding N100 million. Total Fixed Assets: Not exceeding N250 million. “Small Companies” are fully exempt from Companies Income Tax (CIT), Capital Gains Tax (CGT), and a new Development Levy. This exemption applies to businesses that meet specific financial thresholds under recent tax reforms.
The intention is clear: to remove the fear that formalisation automatically leads to punitive taxation. By offering zero rates rather than temporary holidays, the reforms seek to create a stable environment in which small enterprises can grow, invest and hire without the constant risk of sudden tax liabilities.
Larger companies, meanwhile, benefit from lower corporate tax rates and improved VAT credit mechanisms. Under the old system, VAT often became a cost rather than a pass-through tax, particularly where refunds were delayed or denied. The new framework strengthens input VAT credits, reducing distortions and improving cash flow. Combined with a more transparent incentive regime that replaces discretionary waivers with targeted reliefs, the changes are intended to improve competitiveness and attract investment.
Perhaps the most technically significant reform lies in capital gains taxation, particularly as it relates to the capital market. The previous flat-rate approach, which disallowed deductions for legitimate costs and losses, often penalised investors even when overall returns were marginal. The new framework aligns capital gains taxation with income tax principles, allowing deductions for losses and investment-related expenses. Progressive rates replace the flat rate, while generous exemptions protect retail investors, pension funds and other long-term institutional players.
According to Taiwo Oyedele, Chairman of the Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms Committee, the upcoming Capital Gains Tax (CGT) framework will be reviewed from 30 percent to at least 25 percent come 2026. It also includes a “cost-base reset” designed to shield historical investment growth from new taxes. Under this policy, any appreciation in asset value occurring before 2026 is exempt from the new levy, as the government intends to tax only future wealth creation rather than penalizing long-term holdings.
To illustrate this transition, the committee provided a scenario where an investor purchased shares for N5 that grow to a value of N20 by the end of 2025. On January 1, 2026, the tax authority will officially recognize N20 as the new “starting price” for that asset. Consequently, if those shares are sold later in 2026 for N25, the investor is only liable for the N5 profit realized after the law took effect. The initial N15 gain remains entirely tax-free, ensuring that the reform rewards patient capital and maintains investor confidence in the Nigerian market.
Administrative reforms underpin these substantive changes. A unified tax identification framework anchored on existing national identity and corporate registration systems aims to reduce duplication and improve data integrity. Rather than introducing new identifiers, the system consolidates existing ones, simplifying compliance for individuals and businesses alike. Self-assessment remains the cornerstone, but with clearer rules and digital platforms designed to reduce friction and discretion.
The creation of an independent Tax Ombud represents a notable institutional innovation. For the first time, taxpayers have a statutory body empowered to receive complaints, investigate unfair practices and mediate disputes outside adversarial court processes. This responds directly to long-standing grievances about abuse of power and lack of recourse. By embedding taxpayer rights within the system, the reforms acknowledge that compliance cannot be coerced indefinitely; it must be earned.
Equally important is the effort to address multiple taxation at its root. Proposed constitutional amendments seek to clarify the taxing powers of each tier of government, cap the number of taxes that can be imposed and eliminate nuisance levies. If carried through, this could fundamentally change the operating environment for businesses and individuals, replacing uncertainty with predictability.
Taken together, these changes amount to a reimagining of Nigeria’s tax system. The reforms are expansive, touching income, consumption, investment and administration. They aim to lighten the load on households, support enterprise and restore confidence in the fiscal social contract. Yet their success will depend not on legislative intent alone, but on execution, coordination and sustained political will.
As the new regime takes effect, the critical question is no longer what is written in law, but whether the promise of a fairer, simpler and more growth-oriented tax system can be realised in practice. That question turns attention to the readiness of the institutions tasked with implementation — and to the capacity of the state to translate reform into lived experience for Nigerians.
Readiness of the Tax Authorities: Institutions Under Pressure to Deliver
As Nigeria’s new tax regime edges from policy ambition to operational reality, attention has shifted decisively to the institutions charged with making it work. Beyond the laws and fiscal philosophy lies a more demanding test: whether tax authorities at the federal and subnational levels possess the capacity, coordination and credibility to implement reforms that touch virtually every household and business. In recent weeks, a flurry of institutional actions by the Federal Inland Revenue Service and its partners has been interpreted as an early signal that revenue authorities are repositioning for what is widely seen as the most consequential overhaul of Nigeria’s tax administration in decades.
At the centre of this transition is the Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service, Dr. Zacch Adedeji, whose tenure has coincided with a decisive push to modernise Nigeria’s revenue institutions ahead of their reconstitution into the Nigeria Revenue Service by January 2026. The transformation is not cosmetic. It reflects a deliberate effort to align administrative capacity with the scale and complexity of the new tax framework signed into law by President Bola Tinubu.
One of the clearest expressions of this outward-looking approach came with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the FIRS and France’s Direction Générale des Finances Publiques at the French Embassy in Abuja. The agreement focuses on areas of mutual interest, knowledge exchange and the promotion of efficient tax administration, particularly as digitalisation reshapes global revenue systems. Speaking at the event, Adedeji described the partnership as a response to shared challenges confronting modern tax administrations.
“The agreement reflects a shared commitment to building a stronger, more resilient, and forward-looking tax administration for both countries, especially in an era where digitalisation is redefining economic activity and revenue mobilisation,” he said.
The symbolism of the MoU extends beyond bilateral cooperation. For Nigeria, it signals a willingness to benchmark its tax administration against more advanced systems and to draw lessons on data integration, compliance management and dispute resolution. For a system long criticised for weak enforcement capacity and fragmented databases, international collaboration is being positioned as a tool for institutional learning rather than prestige.
Domestically, the most visible marker of readiness has been the transformation of the Joint Tax Board into the Joint Revenue Board, following the signing of the Joint Revenue Board of Nigeria (Establishment) Act 2025 by President Tinubu on June 26. The rebranding was formally unveiled by Adedeji during the 158th meeting of the body held in Abuja on December 10, marking a turning point in the architecture of revenue coordination in Nigeria.
The change represents more than a new name. It signals a legal and institutional reset aimed at addressing one of the most persistent weaknesses in Nigeria’s tax system: the lack of harmony among federal, state and local revenue authorities. Under the new framework, the Joint Revenue Board is empowered to drive coordination, standardisation and policy alignment across all tiers of government, replacing a historically loose consultative structure with a more authoritative platform for cooperation.
Describing the transition, Adedeji said the new identity was intended to reflect renewal and excellence in revenue administration, noting that the Board’s mandate is anchored on eliminating multiple taxation and fostering a revenue environment that supports growth and voluntary compliance. For businesses accustomed to navigating conflicting tax demands from different levels of government, the promise of a unified revenue architecture carries significant weight.
Equally critical to the readiness narrative is the emphasis on technology and data harmonisation. The Executive Secretary of the Joint Revenue Board, Mr. Olusegun Adesokan, disclosed that the Board is fast-tracking the development of a unified national taxpayer database under the Tax ID project. The system is designed to integrate existing identifiers such as the National Identification Number for individuals and corporate registration numbers for businesses, generating a harmonised Tax Identification Number that can be recognised across all revenue authorities.
According to Adesokan, the objective is to eliminate duplication, improve data integrity and ensure seamless interoperability among tax agencies. By anchoring taxpayer records on foundational identity systems, the reforms aim to close loopholes that have historically allowed economic activity to slip through administrative cracks. The digital shift is also expected to reduce human discretion, improve compliance tracking and limit opportunities for revenue leakages.
Beyond systems and structures, readiness has also taken on a more confrontational dimension. At the conclusion of its December meeting, the Joint Revenue Board issued a communique calling for the immediate abolition of road stickers and other unauthorised revenue collection instruments imposed by both state and non-state actors. The Board formally requested the intervention of the Office of the National Security Adviser and the Nigeria Police Force to dismantle illegal roadblocks along major transport corridors.
These roadblocks, often associated with arbitrary levies and extortion, have long been cited as a barrier to ease of doing business and a source of daily friction between citizens and the state. By publicly opposing the practice and urging Nigerians to resist illegal demands, the Board signalled an intention to assert control over revenue collection and restore legitimacy to the tax system.
The push for readiness has not been confined to the federal level. Adedeji has repeatedly urged state governments to prepare for the operational implications of the reforms, particularly as subnational revenue mobilisation becomes increasingly central to fiscal sustainability. Speaking at the 155th meeting of the Joint Tax Board in Suleja, Niger State, he stressed the importance of strengthening internal generated revenue systems to support development outcomes.
“At this critical point in time, it is necessary to strengthen the fabric of our IGR capacity to ensure that the revenue administration processes, especially at the subnational level, become as efficient as possible to optimise the collection of IGR for socioeconomic and human development,” he said.
He acknowledged the work of the Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms Committee, noting that revenue authorities must now look beyond policy formulation to anticipate the operational impact of the reforms across all tiers of government. Adedeji expressed confidence that with diligent implementation and innovative approaches, states could significantly scale up revenue performance, citing the potential for Niger State to achieve a monthly IGR target of N5 billion.
Legislative alignment has emerged as another benchmark of readiness. The Joint Revenue Board commended states that have begun domesticating the new tax laws, with Ekiti State recognised as the first to pass the Harmonised Taxes and Levies (Approved List for Collection) Law. By aligning local revenue practices with the national reform agenda, such moves are intended to ensure consistency in tax rates, bases and enforcement procedures.
As the January 1, 2026 deadline for full implementation approaches, collaboration between the Joint Revenue Board and state internal revenue services has intensified, with the focus shifting to training, systems migration and public sensitisation. Officials describe the process as the most comprehensive fiscal transition in Nigeria’s modern history, one that will test not only institutional capacity but political resolve.
Yet, beneath the confidence conveyed by new partnerships, rebranding exercises and digital projects lies a sobering reality. Readiness is not measured by announcements alone. It will be judged by how smoothly systems function, how disputes are resolved, how consistently rules are applied and how quickly trust can be rebuilt between taxpayers and the state. For Nigeria’s tax authorities, the reforms represent both an opportunity to redefine their role and a reckoning with long-standing institutional shortcomings.
As the new regime takes effect under the Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS) the success of Nigeria’s tax transformation will depend less on the ambition of its laws and more on the ability of its revenue institutions to translate reform into predictable, fair and efficient administration. The coming months will reveal whether the groundwork being laid today is sufficient to meet that challenge.
Conclusion
As Nigeria steps into a new era of taxation, the reforms taking effect mark a decisive attempt to recalibrate how the state raises revenue and how citizens relate to government. The shift signals an acknowledgment that sustainable development cannot rest on a narrow tax base, fragmented administration and weak trust. By widening the net, easing the burden on vulnerable households and small businesses, and strengthening institutional coordination, the new tax regime sets out an ambitious vision of fairness and efficiency.
Yet, the ultimate verdict will be delivered not by legislation or rebranding, but by implementation. The capacity of tax authorities to enforce rules consistently, the willingness of states to align with national standards, and the ability of government to translate revenue into visible public value will determine whether the reforms endure. As January unfolds and the system is tested in practice, Nigeria’s tax transformation stands at a critical juncture — one that could redefine fiscal governance for a generation, or reinforce old scepticisms if promise fails to meet performance.
The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) has invited businessman, Aliko Dangote for more information in respect of his petition against the immediate past managing director of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), Alhaji Farouk Ahmed.
Dangote is expected to appear or send his lawyer, Ogwu Onoja (SAN) tomorrow when ICPC’s investigation of the petition formally commences.
The commission raised a panel of crack investigators on Friday to handle the probe,The Nation learnt yesterday.
The ICPC ,according to sources ,has asked Dangote to submit his evidence to the anti-graft agency.
Dangote had accused Farouk of corruption and misappropriation of funds, including spending millions of dollars on his four children’s education in expensive and exclusive schools in Switzerland.
The businessman accused Farouk of economic sabotage by undermining domestic refining by colluding with international traders and oil importers through the continued issuance of import licences.
Farouk has since resigned his appointment.
But the commission said it is going ahead with the investigation, Farouk’s resignation notwithstanding.
“All is set for the investigation, ” a well- placed source in ICPC told The Nation yesterday.
“ICPC has set up a panel of crack investigators on Dangote’s petition. The Chairman of the commission, Dr. Musa Adamu Aliyu (SAN) asked the trusted team to stay action on a case and focus on Dangote’s petition. This underscores the importance attached to this case,” the source said.
“We have also invited Dangote or his lawyer to come on Monday to adopt the petition. “Either of them is to present relevant documents or evidence to support the petition.
“He who alleges must prove or provide lead on the allegations which our investigators must act on.
“We have acknowledged the receipt of the petition in line with our guidelines or mandate to do so within 48 hours.”
Continuing, the source said :”after formal adoption of the petition, we will isolate issues and ask Ahmed to respond to the allegations.
“We have been inundated with enquiries but I can assure you that ICPC will be fair to all the parties.”
Responding to a question, the source added: “The resignation of Ahmed does not affect this probe which is in the public interest.”
“Section 19 of the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act (ICPC Act 2000) makes it an offence for any public officer to use his/her position to confer an unfair or corrupt advantage on himself, his relatives, associates, or other public officers.Anyone found guilty of any such offence is liable to five years imprisonment without the option of a fine.
“The enabling law also stipulates harsh punishment for individuals deemed to have wasted ICPC’s time and resources by making malicious or frivolous petitions against others.”
In the petition submitted on Tuesday through his lawyer, Ogwu Onoja SAN), Dangote demanded the arrest, investigation and prosecution of Farouk for allegedly living above his means as a public servant.
He accused Farouk of “spending without evidence of lawful means of income amounting to over $7 million for the education of his four children” in Switzerland.
The document named the children and their schools and provided specific amounts paid for verification.
“Engr Farouk Ahmed spent without evidence of lawful means of income humongous amount of money of over $7million of public funds, for the education of his four children in different schools in Switzerland for a period of six years upfront,” Dangote alleged.
“It is without doubt that the above facts in relation to abuse of office, breach of the Code of Conduct for public officers, corrupt enrichment and embezzlement constitute gross acts of corrupt practices, for which ICPC is statutorily empowered under section 19 of the ICPC Act to investigate and prosecute,” Dangote added.
The cold war between Dangote and petroleum regulators had earlier sparked a N100billion suit.
The Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals FZE filed a N100 billion lawsuit at the Federal High Court in Abuja challenging import licences issued by the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) and others, including the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL).
The refinery accused the regulator of granting licences to import refined petroleum products despite domestic production capacity.
It alleged that the action of the regulator has violated some sections of the Petroleum Industry Act.
The suit, FHC/ABJ/CS/1324/2024, was discontinued in July 2025 by Dangote’s lawyers.
ICPC petition guidelines say: “Any person anywhere in the world may make a complaint against any other person (corporate or non- corporate) in Nigeria, where reasonable grounds exist for suspecting that such a person has conspired to commit or attempted to commit or has committed an offence under the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act 2000.
●Complaint/petition is made through oral/written report submitted through post, physically to any ICPC office in Nigeria.
●A complaint made orally or by an illiterate shall be reduced into writing and read over to the complainant by an officer of the Commission.
● The report shall set out details of the complaint , date, time and place where the offence was allegedly committed.
●The complainant shall provide the names and addresses, phone number, email and other relevant information that may assist the Commission in locating the person or persons against whom the complaint is made.
●The complainant shall state his/her full address, email or phone number or any other information that will assist the commission in contacting him/her, whenever necessary.
●Reports can also be made online through any of the commission’s reporting platforms.
●The commission shall acknowledge receipt of any petition within 48 hours.
Spokesperson of ICPC , John Okor Odey confirmed that the commission “received a formal petition on Tuesday, 16th December, 2025 from Alhaji Aliko Dangote through his lawyer. The petition is against the CEO of the NMDPRA, Alhaji Farouk Ahmed. The ICPC wishes to state that the petition will be duly investigated.”
