Yesterday marked the start of the year 2026, and as such, the new Tax Policies of Nigeria were also kicked into effect, meaning that now, just about everything about our lives will be taxed. For a country that has done nothing at all to provide and take care of its people, they sure seem eager to take the little that they have. As in, when there is no job available, how are people meant to make money and pay taxes?
But then, it’s not like taxes are a new thing. Civil servants and even some major employees of corporations have always been paying their taxes, but then you have to wonder, where did all that money go? Because strikes are still abundant, roads are still terrible, and infrastructure is still worse off. When they couldn’t do jack with little money, it’s making it hard to believe that they’ll fare any better when they have even more money at their disposal.
Let’s be honest, though, before now, the majority of Nigerians didn’t pay their taxes simply because they didn’t care to, and there was no sufficient infrastructure in place to take it. There is no country in the world where citizens don’t try to evade tax, it’s a normal thing. Even celebrities and billionaires have been arrested for this very crime. The only difference is that in Nigeria, the tax office just didn’t care enough to go after them. They only did that when certain people came online to talk about how much they were making.
But all that is changing now, and in a weird way, this might actually be good for the country. Calm down, I’ll explain my reason.
In the past, most of Nigeria’s problems have always been targeted at the poor. Police brutality, insecurity, and unemployment. With some connection and a little cash, you could live a fairly good life. When you fall sick, you are immediately flown to a foreign country for expert medical care. But this past year, things have changed drastically. Insecurity has worsened, and it’s touching everyone. Top-ranking military officials have fallen, billionaires and millionaires have fallen to bandits just as much as the poorest of people have.
And now, with the tax laws, something that is designed to take money from everyone, especially the rich. Working your butt off for every day of the year only to give a substantial portion of it to a government that doesn’t care about you. That would hurt like hell. That’s basically what the whole of 2026 will be like, suffering and paying our taxes.
And I can bet you that we won’t see any improvement. Things will only get worse, they will embezzle the money, healthcare with collapse even further, and the economy won’t even rise at all. And then, maybe this will be the eye-opener that we’ll need. This will make everyone actually sit up and do the right thing, because it’s clear that as long as you don’t see anything as yours, you won’t care at all about it. That’s why people look the other way when government properties are being vandalized and destroyed.
Everyone will be more proactive in protecting their rights, and even better, it just might influence their voting choices come 2027. My hope is that we’re all going to vote with our conscience and vote for who we believe is right for us, rather than voting with sentiments and bias, simply because we want our person to be in the seat. Because the sad truth is that, while you put your person into the seat, he might not even see you as one of his people. Because in the end, a bad economy is rated E, everyone gets to suffer for it, and no one escapes it.
I just hope that things will work out for us. Because we’ve already been through enough as a country. God help us all.
