₦airaland Forum

omoredia:
Nigeria is not my home. It is also the white mans creation.

When nitty now comes to gritty, he has quickly deny his fathers homestead, having swallowed DT's crumbs in the US wasteland. What a tragedy!

omoredia:
When a wise child gets insulted outside he goes back home and clean up his room

We are therefore eagerly awaiting your return back home to do so.

Happy packing.

Segxydube:
U go show proof wen hand touch u

So says a person used to hiding under his bed whenever his former commander from Finland ordered him to do so every other Monday.

omoredia:
Excess power oo. He knows that God brought him back to totally change the world

Hope your hero's excess power will not be exercised to catapult you back to Nigeria, where you can continue to support him with the same alacrity.

Tareq1105:
Why don't you enlist to be a witness in this case?

You could be of help to the court since you know so much.

The guy is gradually turning kolo with his spurious allegations against Tinubu.

smokinloud:
Someone that has been suspended already...

So you were there when they gave him the suspension letter?

America is not Nigeria, where rules are administered arbitrarily.

anonimi:
Is Tinubu the pedophile that Trump is protecting his incompetence and cluelessness to keep 200 million Nigerians safe and our properties secure?

Abi, what made Tinubu invite Trump to invade our country, kill innocent northerners and claim they were Muslim terrorists committing genocide against Christians

Your hatred of Tinubu is gradually turning into kolomental, with your spurious accusations everywhere.

Take time to visit your merecine baba soonest to renew your daily dose.

Believe me, you need it urgently.

nairalanda1:
This comment is why you will never have good leaders.

Tax does not form the majority of our earnings. Oil income does.

That's why looting happens. The money is not coming from our pockets most of the time. Truth in the 1960s before oil became our income earner, truth today

In Germany , most money that the politicans spend comes from tax. That is why their people hold them accountable. One would be madt to steal in a country where 90% of budget came from tax

*A GOOD EXAMPLE OF PUBLIC POLICY CRITICISM AND INTELLIGENT OPPOSITION .*

“Attention President Bola Tinubu”
By Emmanuel Orjih


Joseph, my 20-year-old relative, lives in my country home in the village. Joseph is unmarried, has no children, lives rent-free, works in my gardens, and ensures a human presence in my village house. For this, he earns N75,000 a month, while working on getting admitted into a tertiary institution to further his studies. Stories like Joseph’s are common across Nigeria’s landscape but are rarely visible where policy is made.


So at a tax explainer event with senior FIRS officers in Abuja, I asked whether Joseph would pay tax under the new tax regime which I call: “Bola’s Tax”. The answer was no. Joseph, they said, would not pay any tax.

Public policy should always be able to withstand its own arithmetic, so I asked them to show me how. And that was how the calculation began.

They listed all the deductibles Joseph was said to be entitled to. We examined each one carefully and matched them against Joseph’s real circumstances. After doing so, they agreed that the only deductible Joseph actually qualified for was pension.

Pension for Joseph is 8 percent, assuming compliance with statutory pension requirements. We ran the numbers. This resulted in a reduction of about N6,000, bringing Joseph’s taxable income to N69,000 per month and placing him squarely within the tax bracket of Bola’s Tax.

At that point, the officials performed a public U-turn. They revised their earlier position and accepted that Joseph, who earns N75,000 a month and lives a subsistence life, would indeed pay tax under the new regime.

They accepted because the logic left them no alternative. I did not debate. I did not raise my voice. I simply followed the framework they presented and asked careful, sequential questions. I used their logic on them. And it led to a conclusion that could not be avoided:

Nigeria’s poor are about to start paying taxes.

So who are Nigeria’s poor? If any institution has the authority to define poverty globally, it is the World Bank. I would know a bit about this, given that I am ex-World Bank, having worked at its Washington DC HQ and with several Southeast Asian country operations.

The World Bank estimates that 143 million Nigerians are “poor”. This determination is derived from a country-specific poverty line for LMICs (Lower Middle Income Countries). For Nigeria, that poverty line stands at approximately N190,000 per month, based on the World Bank’s daily poverty threshold of $4.20 converted to a monthly figure. Anyone earning below this amount is considered poor.

1. Everyone earning less than N190,000 a month in Nigeria is poor

2. Bola’s Tax will take money from Nigerians earning N67,000 a month.

3. Joseph earns N75,000 a month.

4. Joseph is poor

5. Bola’s Tax takes money from poor people like Joseph

These are 5 irrefutable facts.

No matter what political leaders, their supporters, and their armies of journalists and influencers may say about the poor being protected from Bola’s Tax therefore, the arithmetic tells a very clear and a very different story.

Even their own official communications acknowledge this reality – perhaps inadvertently. One of the stated objectives of Bola’s Tax is to “widen the tax base.” And those are not my words.

Policy language often sounds neutral until its consequences are made explicit. Widening the tax base simply means bringing more Nigerians into the tax net. Nigeria’s wealthy have long been within the tax net. If the wealthy are already there, then the widening must necessarily reach downward. There are only three possibilities therefore: the poor, livestock, or ghosts. I suspect we all know which of the three it is.

Given this, Nigeria’s poor are entitled to ask further questions. Questions like:

What will be done with the additional taxes collected from people like Joseph?

To answer this question, we need to look at government’s antecedents with similar public funds:

A. What do they do with Nigeria’s budget?

B. What did they do with the billions of dollars in external loans they have collected?

C. What do they do with fuel subsidy “savings”?

D. What do they do with earnings from crude oil revenue, including the forward sales?

E. What did they do with the billions of dollars that foreign development partners have delivered?

F. What do they do with the huge IGR they collect daily, weekly, monthly, and annually?

G. What did they do with the ever-present and ever-increasing VAT?

H. What did they do with all the stolen loot they recovered from Abacha, Emefiele, etc?

Wisdom demands that we judge government not by promises or by rhetoric, but by patterns and antecedents. On the basis of this, Nigeria’s poor are justifiably apprehensive that if Bola’s Tax is collected, whatever happened to the 8 pools of public funds listed above, will also likely happen to monies pooled from Bola’s Tax.

Finally, it is well established in macroeconomic and development economics that governments should exercise restraint in raising taxes when an economy is experiencing even one of the following conditions:

A. High inflation

B. Falling real wages

C. Shrinking or weak GDP growth

D. Rising unemployment

E. A large informal sector

F. High poverty rates

G. Weak social safety nets

H. Low wages and unstable earnings

I. Weak administrative capacity

Nigeria is experiencing all nine simultaneously. In such conditions, restraint is a responsibility, even a duty, particularly toward the poor.

When inflation is high and real incomes are falling, raising taxes reduces the purchasing power of the poor. When growth is weak, higher taxes suppress investment and job creation. When unemployment and informality are widespread, aggressive taxation pushes vulnerable households further to the margins.

In these conditions, tax increases do not reliably raise sustainable revenue. Instead, they shrink the tax base, increase non-compliance, and deepen poverty. This is not ideology. It is evidence, observed repeatedly across developing economies.

Sound fiscal policy requires sequencing:

1. Stabilize inflation

2. Support real wages

3. Restore growth and expand social protection

4. Strengthen administrative capacity

Only after these foundations are in place does broad-based taxation become effective and fair. Anything else shifts adjustment costs downward, where the poor are least able to absorb them. Implementing a tax regime that brings your poor population into the tax bracket when all 9 conditions are present is akin to national economic suicide.

This naturally leads us to the point where we must then ask: why are these national economic risks even being taken at all, and to what end?

A. So misappropriation of public funds can continue without consequence?

B. So inflated and padded contracts can keep rolling year after year?

C. So oversized and loud convoys, motorcades, and security entourages can continue to consume public money?

D. So offices unknown to the law, including the first lady office, and now the office of the first son, can continue to be brazenly funded from public coffers?

E. So political elites can continue to rely on public-funded foreign healthcare while Nigerian public hospitals serving the poor decay?

F. So judicial outcomes can continue to be improperly influenced and financed?

G. So public-funded political violence can continue to undermine democratic participation?

H. So elections can continue to be distorted using public resources?

I. So security votes funded by the public can remain opaque?

J. So abandoned projects can be endlessly recycled and re-awarded for bigger amounts at taxpayer expense?

K. So emergency public procurement can continue to bypass due process?

L. So patronage networks that deliver public funds to value depreciators can persist?

M. So public funded luxury allowances can expand while citizens are told to endure hardship?

N. So schools serving the poor can continue to collapse while children of public officials jet off to study abroad on public funds?

O. So cost of commissioning and launching a project continues to compete with cost of the project itself?

P. So broken systems can be substituted rather than fixed at taxpayer cost?

Q. So bloated bureaucracies funded by taxpayers can persist with thousands of redundant and idle workers?

R. So competence can continue to be subordinated to loyalty on the tab of the taxpayer?

S. So value for money can remain elusive while taxpayer bears the financial burden?

T. So public assets can continue to decay at taxpayer cost?

U. So palliatives targeted at the poor can continue to be hoarded, looted and traded for political gain?

V. So estacodes continue to flow unabated depleting public funds?

W. So social safety nets can remain weak when they could be funded by our taxes?

X. So citizens can continue to self-provide basic services including power, potable water, security, education, healthcare while taxes are abused?

Y. So trust between the poor and the state can continue to erode driven by abuse of commonwealth?

Z. So the poor can be asked to pay more and receive almost nothing in return for their own commonwealth?

Stop for one second. Ask yourself one simple question:

If government has been collecting money since, and your life did not improve, why will this one be different?

If food is already expensive, if transport is already costly, if school fees are already heavy, why take more money from poor people? This tax will not fix Nigeria. Rather, this tax will push the poor deeper into suffering. This is the truth without the sugarcoat.

Nigeria now stands at crossroads.

Road One:
Poor people keep paying more.
Hunger increases.
Suffering grows.
Nigeria becomes weaker.

Road Two:
We stop this tax.
The poor breathe.
Families survive.
Nigeria has a chance.

Only one road helps you.

If you choose to Stop This Tax, then from tomorrow 6th of January 2026, visit our website: StopThisTax.org

We are not asking you to protest.

We are not asking you for money or for anything else.

We only want you to understand.

When you understand, you will know what to do.

Tomorrow, go to StopThisTax.org

Learn quietly.
Protect yourself lawfully.

If this brings clarity to you, feel free to share it with other Nigerians who may be affected.

Yours in Service,
Emmanuel Orjih

Email: emmanuel@StopThisTax.org.

www.linkedin.com/in/emmanuel-orjih

ElevationD:
Abia state never experienced freshness and joy between 1999 under Orji Uzor Kalu and the catastrophic Thoedore Orji and Ikpeazu years.

While the state bled from wasted resources within those years, these ones who try to spin a political narrative against Alex Otti, forget so quickly that citizens are not fooled by Orji Uzor and his co-travelers, with the goodness the people presently see and experience in the state.

Orji Uzor served eight tortuous years and handed over to Theodore Orji, who at the time was detained. He came out and continued the wastage, before handing over to the cantankerous kerosene donating Ikpeazu.

Orji boasts of building the roads during his tenure and Alex Otti now paints them. What a shame that he made such a comment. When he used the word “paint”, who was he trying to deceive that dilapidated roads are painted, instead of being reconstructed? If the roads that he built during his tenure were leading to several communities and were is bad shape, did he not expect a reasonable governor to rebuilt them?

Thankfully, Abia state has a man coming from the finance sector, who understands how to handle financial issues more than these political deceivers. When they say Alex Otti supporters/praise singers, they forget that they refer to the entire decent citizens of Abia state, who suffered too many years of neglect, arising from the uncommon looting of their patrimony. It took Ikpeazu several years during his tenure to build a little bridge and even at that it was poorly constructed.

Thankfully Alex Otti is gradually cleaning the mess that they left behind and giving Abia state a new breathe of life. All sectors of the economy are being touched. I wonder how they expect all public hospitals to be fixed in one day, when the state manages its finances. If these politicians can just bring out portions of what they embezzled from that state, would all those institutions not work overnight?

Anyway, they say it’s all politics. Orji Uzor Kalu’s brother wants to contest the governorship on the platform of APC and they want state presence. Ikpeazu and Orji were roundly defeated in the last elections, as Obi’s name was there. Now Otti has added performance that people can see. He set a benchmark and the sounds are across the nation. How can the three ex governors defeat him? Infact, where will Theodore Orji or Ikpeazu start from?

So says Labour Party and Obidients' Chief Propagandist on Nairaland.

We however believe Otti's opponents that are saying his alluded infrastructural progress in Abia are mainly white elephant projects, and chiefly of the audio varieties.

givedemwotowoto:
Yes. exactly the mentality that will make the DSS or NIA not to investigate, because it's not important to Nigerians. That's why influencers post more about Wike and Fubara, because that's what is important to people like you

Therefore it is better you accept your fate, since no one cares. And watch your back always to ensure that no kidnappers are trailing you anytime.

givedemwotowoto:
Surveillance camera showed a person being kidnapped in their home days ago but you won’t see 100 threads from many different influencers and news media running for weeks about it. It’s a one time flash news and it’s gone, we go back to Wike vs Fubara

Forward your complaint to DSS and NIA, there is no one on Nairaland, or Instagram and X who is able to help you investigate and arrest the kidnappers.

Stolen:
THE MINUTE RENO JOINED TINUBU CAMP, I KNEW TINUBU ALREADY LOST 2027.



GO AND CHECK ALL THE PEOPLE RENO EVER SUPPORTED TO FIND OUT.

DREAM ON, 2027 IS JUST TWELVE MONTHS AWAY.

THEN WAKE UP TO WAIL WITH NEW HATE LYRICS TILL 2031.

KomonSense:
Peter Mbah you are digging your own political grave

If not for greedy Rochas Okorocha,

APGA would have been a dominant party in all 5 states of South East.

As far as the Whole South East is concerned,

APC is not acceptable and can never be accepted

APC is not acceptable in the SE, yet the party is governing 3 of your 5 states.

What an irony!

ElevationD:
When you read without understanding, you make life difficult for yourself.

The 2019 Presidential election recorded 5,047 votes only for LP. With Obi on the ballot in 2023 it was 6.101 million. The party was said not to have structure. You all mocked Obi and LP. You called the party structureless and with far less agents nationwide. He surprised you all. He told you all that his structure was the people and it was so.

He spent his money and supervised it all with his team. No money from the party and yet some crooks and greedy people within the executives expected money to be handed over to them. Ask those party executives what happened to the money given to them by the government. Or were you not there when the issue of mismanagement was leveled against Abure and his group? You all sent Apapa and Abayomi. They all failed woefully.

Hopeless aspirants nationwide won seats at the state and federal levels just using Obi’s name. Reno Omokri recently got an ambassadorial job using Obi’s name. Now members of the state and National Assembly have started regrouping with their leader in ADC. How many of them will be left in LP? Well maybe you can team up with LP.

Obi left all and went away. Now he is with ADC, with a wider national spread and more prominent politicians. I know that Obi in ADC strikes fear in the heart of APC and its supports. You have all heard, even from the biggest APC leaders, that their greatest threat is Obi. He has his money. He does not need anyone’s money. The mantra is “no shishi”. If we stop bribing at every point, we will have a better Nigeria.

Youths like you make life hard for yourselves when you support bribe givers and takers. That’s why Nigeria keeps suffering as a nation, with the very wrong people holding leadership positions. Wake up.

And to you, Obi is the Saint in government that the Nigerian youth are waiting for, even though his past governance profile is far from your political hype of him.

From his lofty political platform pre 2023, Obi has fallen just to become a regional champion, as most of those that supported him from other regions has since decamped to other parties, just like him.

Savedday2:
Very useless sets of billionaires. They won't give dollars to striving entrepreneurs (that will end up employing others) or those doing well academically or even with the the region having the highest out of school children.

Do they thing that is these footballers that will be the problem to them and the society 2moro?

See how hunger is driving a lot of youth in the region into crime resulting in very high insecurities.

I spit on them! Billionaire my foot.

Go and make your own billions too, and distribute it to ban bi Allah beggars as you wish.

You don't tell a man how to spend his own money, as no one is directing you on how you are spending your own paltry salary.

BUA is already doing more than enough already, therefore SPIT upon yourself for not being useful to the general society.

Omooh, see money!

Too much money, that one can just dash out 1.5 million Dollars without cares. God, please answer my prayers, I want to dash Super Eagles money too for making me happy.

prinsam30:
I've never condemn lookman the way u people rain curses on osimeh like say the collect Una pension

Count me out of those who condemned Osimhen, the Ajegunle guy is my man. He gives me joy.

ernieboy:
he nor go reach finidi level abi him don pass finidi. Someone that is just about 3 goals shy of being the highest goal scorer, ever, for the se. A record that has been unbroken for decades and held by rashidi yekini.

Why are you replying his hateful rant against Osimhen? You are making him important by doing so. Is he even worthy to tie Osimhen's boots.

Danisaint112:
You can't tell bro. They are going to play with hunger and dodgedness knowing they are the host nation and we have had so many clean run.

I repeat it's not going to be easy. Super eagles should double down on that day.

It is true. The Morocco/Cameroon match that I watched yesterday the Moroccan were determined to win from the start, and they obviously outplayed Cameroon to the end.

But they are beatable.

Game is over, thank God.
2:0. to Super Eagles.
Shame to haters.

prinsam30:
Aswear this osimeh too get sense

What about Lookman that sent the super cross.

Nigeria are missing many scoring chanches.

DT should be careful, because there is one egede among the greenlander threatening him.

goslowgoslow:
You were making sense until you said Nigeria was built to marginalize Igbo at that point I stopped reading your comment.

Same as me. The moment I read that, I quickly log off his rant.

bigysf:
https://bbc.com/news/articles/ckgl8rnl744o

BBC never mentioned Abacha inthwir report. The hypocrite posting this news only suiedbhis hatred for and sadistic nature. The original link isnpasted above.

A looter supporting his fellow northern looters sighted.

Hands go soon touch you.

Everyday for the thief, one day for the owner, and it will then be kilimanjere for ever.

blackmantis:
Even the assistant refs are something else. A morrorcan kicked the ball out of play yet a throw in is given to Morocco.

The infringement decisions of the African referees since the beginning of the tournament have been largely poor.

Them giving yellow or red cards to players whose infringement did not deserve it was too common, or the giving of penalty on a flimsy attack had also been seen.

No wonder they are not being invited to officiate in any global tournament.

ExudeLoveToAll:
Tinubu lost in Rivers but Wike tore the result and brought Tinubu as number one you don't think that is legendary? He tore all our votes for Obi and gave it to Tinubu, that's magic at it's peak. Wike also galvanized his cohorts around the country to support Tinubu, even if I'm still angry at Wike for what he did to my legitimate votes in 2023 I can't White wash his role to Tinubu' emergence as the winner in Rivers presidential elections even when Tinubu took third in the actual votes.

And you were there to witness all these electoral atrocities you attributed to Wike, or were all these just beer parlour gossips you gathered while drinking with miscreants in your joint?

anonimi:
Indeed he is phenomenal in misplaced priorities and using strategically placed, overhyped roads to cover up his looting of our commonwealth.

Abi you have seen all the 40 roads done with his $84 billion subsidy savings that has hiked petrol price and made life unaffordable for 200 million Nigerians



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85dz0pwF6LA

I am pretty sure that the position you are presently occupying, whether in your family or in official capacity, many people are equally seeing you as unproductive and utterly ineffective, even though you are be trying your best.

Well that's prince karma speaking to you, that you reap whatever you may have sown.

ayoncox:
The main issue is not being Lilly livered but ethnical and religious bigotry, what do you expect from a country having about 600 Ethnicities whose mind have been colonised and programmed to flow with divide and rule

But I read on another thread that Iranians speak more than 79 languages with Persian being the official language. So if their different tribes can do that, what's stopping Nigerian youths to mobilise themselves and shake our greedy rulers too. It is just plain timidity.

The lily livered Nigerian populace can never replicate this kind of protest against their rogue leaders.

Their own is to whine pussyfoot on social media, and throw brickbats at each other ethnic wise.

Fela had wisely perceive their timidity, and sang: "My people dem dey fear too much...".

Amaewhule want to become governor through the back door after sacking Fubara and his deputy at the same time.

Greed taken too far.