President Bola Tinubu is gambling that Nigerians will tolerate what they once took to the streets to resist. His tax revolution, which came into force on January 1, 2026, bears all the hallmarks of a reform that makes sense on a spreadsheet but detonates at the ballot box. By centralizing revenue collection in Abuja and tightening the federal government’s grip on household and business incomes at a moment of acute economic pain, Tinubu risks reopening an old national wound: the suspicion that fiscal “reform” is merely austerity by another name, imposed from above by people insulated from its consequences.
The warning signs are already visible. Lawmakers from within the ruling All Progressives’ Congress (APC); especially those from poorer northern states; are questioning not just the timing but the legitimacy of the new tax laws, insisting that the bills implemented differ from those they passed. Such procedural quarrels rarely ignite popular anger on their own. But in a country where fuel-price adjustments once triggered mass protests and where past attempts to concentrate fiscal power in the presidency bred deep political resentment, the optics of a new super-tax authority collecting more, faster, and from everyone, are combustible. Tinubu may have won the legislative battle. Whether he has the political consent to collect is another matter entirely.
Tinubu has always believed that power lies not merely in winning elections, but in mastering the machinery that pays for the state. Nowhere is that instinct clearer than in his new tax regime, which came into force despite grumbling from lawmakers, governors and even members of his own party. The president’s faith, unmistakably, is in the tax collectors. The risk is that Nigerians may soon put their faith in revolt. Tinubu’s ambition is audacious. Nigeria’s tax-to-GDP ratio, at 13.5%, is among the lowest in Africa; he wants to raise it to 20% by 2027. Yet the way he intends to get there is politically combustible. Headline rates are largely unchanged or even cut. VAT remains at 7.5%. Corporate tax falls from 30% to 25%. Low-income earners; those making under roughly $830 a year, are exempted altogether. The revenue uplift, therefore, must come from tighter enforcement, broader nets and fewer places to hide. That is where the trouble begins.
At the heart of the reform is the replacement of the Federal Inland Revenue Service with a new behemoth: the Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS). This super-agency is empowered to collect virtually all federal revenues, stripping long-standing powers from institutions such as the customs service and the petroleum regulator. Abuja’s justification is compelling on paper: more than $2.6bn in agency receipts went missing in 2024. Centralization, the argument runs, will plug the leaks.
But Nigeria is not merely a balance sheet. It is a federation held together by suspicion, patronage and a delicate sharing of spoils. By pulling revenue collection into the center, Tinubu has unsettled that equilibrium. Northern lawmakers; already nursing grievances over subsidy removal and currency devaluation, complain that the bills enacted differ from what parliament approved. The National Assembly’s demand for certified copies is not just procedural pedantry; it is a warning shot.
The deeper fear is political, not clerical. The NRS can also collect taxes on behalf of states and local governments, for a fee of at least 2%. In theory, this is voluntary. In practice, cash-strapped governors may find refusal difficult. Fiscal autonomy, long cherished in Nigeria’s federal imagination, begins to look negotiable. The man who will preside over this concentration of power is Zacchaeus Adedeji, a Tinubu loyalist who already rivals the oil boss and the central-bank governor in influence. Few unelected officials will ever have controlled so much money in Nigeria. That alone makes him a lightning rod.
The President has form here. He scrapped fuel subsidies at the start of his presidency, absorbing the political pain in return for fiscal credibility. He seems to believe the tax backlash will similarly burn out. Perhaps. But there is a crucial difference. Subsidies were abstract; taxes are intimate. They arrive with letters, penalties and enforcement agents. In a country where informality is survival, compliance feels like coercion. Already, memories linger of last year’s uproar, when earlier versions of the bills triggered what some called a “national tax revolt”, stalling legislation for six months. This time, the laws are in force. The confrontation will therefore move from parliament to markets, motor parks and small businesses; the very constituencies Tinubu must court for 2027.
The president’s allies argue that improved collection is painless reform: no new taxes, just better administration. That is optimistic. In economies where trust in the state is thin, enforcement without visible reciprocity breeds anger. Roads remain broken. Power is unreliable. Security is fragile. Asking citizens to pay more efficiently for less convincingly delivered governance is a hazardous gamble.
Tinubu has won another fiscal battle in Abuja. Whether he wins the political war is another matter. If the taxman becomes the face of the state before schools, clinics and jobs do, the revolt he risks may not be legislative, but electoral.
Tinubu may yet discover that the most dangerous opposition to his re-election bid in 2027 is not across the aisle, but within his own camp; and in the tax assessments landing on Nigerians’ doorsteps. His sweeping tax overhaul is beginning to look less like technocratic housekeeping and more like a political accelerant. As dissent simmers inside the ruling APC and murmurs of betrayal grow louder among lawmakers from poorer states, Tinubu’s bet that tighter tax collection can rescue Nigeria’s finances risks provoking a revolt that ballots, not balance sheets, will settle.
