Very recently, the Federal Government confirmed the suspension of the implementation of the cyber security levy which no doubt was ill-timed. The levy was to be 0.5 per cent on electronic transactions. One can easily recall that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) issued a circular on May 6, 2024, mandating all banks, mobile money operators, and payment service providers to commence the deductions of the new cyber security levy in pronto.
The levy was contained in the Cybercrime (Prohibition and Prevention, etc) (Amendment) Act 2024 and amounts to 0.5 per cent of the value of all electronic transactions, meant to be remitted to the National Cyber Security Fund to be superintended over by the office of the National Security Adviser (NSA), who is directly in charge of security.
This could have been a way to rake in several millions of naira daily. Despite the ongoing security challenges facing the country that no doubt, require a large quantum of money and resources to confront, Nigerians vehemently rejected the new tax. The spontaneous reactions of the citizens forced President Tinubu to put on hold its implementation to enable the government to review the policy.
The reasons for the aversion to this tax are not far-fetched. It came at a very wrong time. Being ill-timed, it could not have been popular with Nigerians. Barely a year after the Federal Government withdrew fuel subsidy almost immediately President Bola Tinubu was sworn in on May 29, 2023. This has inflicted untold hardship on the well-being of an average Nigerian in terms of the spiralling inflation that accompanied the policy coupled with millions of Nigerians already pushed into multidimensional poverty.
The idea of another taxation perceived as an additional burden on hapless Nigerians could not have been popular. Aside from that, there was a weak media plan for the policy. The required sensitisation and needed consultation of the stakeholders were not done. The basic assumption that Nigerians are resilient and could swallow anything did not go down well with the people at least for being taken for granted.
The issue of trust, which is lacking between the government and the citizens is there. The quantum of brazen corruption and larceny by public officeholders does not justify asking Nigerians to belt up and endure more hardship. Cases of corruption as exposed by the anti-corruption agencies – ICPC and EFCC – weekly are enough to dampen the spirit of the masses of our people. The basic perception of the people rightly or wrongly however is that the revenue will be embezzled in the characteristic manner of public office holders.
The integrity question has completely evaporated the little trust between the government and the governed thereby breaking down the social contract. This was not so in pre-colonial Africa. Famous political sociologists in person of E.E. Forth and Evans-Pritchard in their insightful work on African Political Systems corroborated the fact that Africans were used to payment of taxes and levies.
This could be poll tax charged on individuals (male only then) or community-based ones called Isakole in Yorubaland. With internecine warfare here and there all over Africa, communities that were overpowered or annexed were subjugated and made to pay annual taxes to the new overlord. This could be in kind or cash as the case may be. It was called different names in different human collectivities in pre-colonial Africa.
Meanwhile, in post-colonial Africa, taxation became repugnant to our people. This is not unconnected with what Professor Peter Ekeh – a political sociologist too – (of blessed memory) regarded as the hang-over of militant nationalism on legitimacy in the post-colonial era. He recalled that in colonial Africa, indigenous people were dissuaded from payment of taxes to the colonial governments. He put it succinctly thus: “The struggle entailed a necessary but destructive strategy, sabotage of the administrative efforts of the colonisers.
A great deal of the anti-colonial activities by African bourgeoisie consisted of encouragement to their followers to be late to work, to go on strikes for a variety of frivolous reasons.” Ekeh recalled further that “the Africans who evaded tax was a hero, the African labourer who beat up his white employer was given extensive coverage in the newspapers. In general, the African bourgeoisie class, in and out of politics, encouraged the common man to shirk his duties and responsibilities to the government…in the same breath he was encouraged to demand his rights.”
Such a strategy, one must repeat, he concluded “was a necessary sabotage against alien personnel whom the African bourgeoisie class wanted to replace” by all means.
Nonetheless, one can easily recall too, the November-December 1929 Aba riot. Then thousands of Igbo women organised a massive revolt against the policies imposed by the then British colonial administration in South-Eastern Nigeria. Primarily, the protest was against special taxes imposed on the Igbo market traders. These women were responsible for supplying the food to the growing urban populations in Calabar, Owerri and other Nigerian cities. They feared the taxes would drive many of them out of the market.
Women were mobilised to disrupt the supply of food that was to be available to the populace. Eventually, police killed as many as 50 women who were protesting naked to demonstrate their anger against the colonial government. It took almost two months before the revolt could be quelled.
This negative attitude to taxation continued even long after independence. Aversion to taxation culminated in another revolt in the South-West between 1968 and 1969; when the popular Agbekoya revolt broke out. It was the anger of the peasant farmers against the Federal Government over taxation. Though, fought for and won against the Federal Military Government by the Ibadan people of present-day Oyo State on behalf of all Yoruba land. It was spearheaded by two villages in Ibadan – Akanran present day Ona Ara Local Government and Akufo, also in Ido Local Government area – it was the most well-known peasant-driven political revolt ever in Western Nigeria’s history.
The revolt was predominantly aimed at agitating for a reduction in taxes; most especially a reduction in the flat rate tax of $8 and an end to the use of force in tax collection in the region among others. The war song by the peasant farmers was “oke mefa lao san, oke mefa lao san…” meaning (we are only paying 30 shillings).
Many police officers and men including soldiers lost their precious lives in the imbroglio that entailed a personal appeal by the late sage Chief Obafemi Awolowo to appease the Yoruba gods before the revolt could be quelled. His cult-like followers and charismatic leadership quality arrested the situation and stopped the carnage.
Be that as it may, ironically, at independence, this conception of the state as one to be exploited to further partisan interest had become so firmly established that the leaders themselves found it difficult to convince citizens that the state was deserving of obedience.
It is not surprising therefore that when the Western Regional government under the leadership of Chief Obafemi Awolowo (of blessed memory) wanted to levy citizens to fund its free education and free health programmes in the 1950s, politicians found it extremely difficult to convince the people on the need to financially support the government that was desirous of providing the welfare services.
On January 23, 1953, Chief Awolowo, the then Premier of the defunct Western Region, trying to convince honourable members of the parliament on the need to levy citizens wrote that: “it would be the height of bad faith and breach of trust to exploit the ignorance of the masses in statecraft and delude them into believing that they can get the good things of life for nothing, or that the financial contribution which they are now called upon to make for education and health is exorbitant.”
Having aided and abetted disobedience to the state in the colonial era vis-à-vis payment of taxes and levies, nascent political leaders after independence found it extremely difficult to convince their followers and the citizenry that it was part of their civic obligations to pay taxes! More so they were dissuaded from doing so during colonialism simply because the post-colonial state became exploitative to them too.
It is imperative to emphasise at this juncture that governments at all levels need to buy back their legitimacy by convincing their citizens that they need to pay taxes because welfare services cost money and must be paid for either by individuals or the government. This attitude must have been responsible for non- settlement of electricity bills including postal services. This faulty orientation does not exclude places of worship where members hardly remit their tithes and offerings to the church.
If the pay-as-you-earn (PAYE) deductions from the source system are discarded, government may be shocked that a quarter of its revenue may not come in. Secondly, the government should fight corruption to a standstill rather than the present cosmetic exercise of ephemeral media trials that is not achieving the desired result.
Finally, the government needs to deliver the dividends of democracy. If each community and individual are getting a better life in terms of social welfare and basic infrastructure, it may get easier to collect taxes and rates. The parlous state of the economy that has pauperised Nigerians is uncalled for and discouraging people from paying taxes.
Whereas, at no point in time in all regions and climes of the world are social services provided gratis. The era of free this and that is gone and gone forever at best government can pump more money into critical sectors of the economy in terms of subsidy.
Prof. Ojo teaches Political Science, at the University of Ilorin, Kwara State.
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