Will Nigeria’s Poor Pay “Bola’s Tax”? An Abuja conversation that turned into a national question

By Emmanuel Orjih (republished/adapted with permission). Edited for AbujaCity.com.

Nigeria’s new tax laws are now live, with the Federal Government insisting implementation would proceed from January 1, 2026 despite pushback. (Reuters)But beyond the politics and the press releases is a simpler—and more personal—question Nigerians are already asking:

Will the new tax regime quietly pull low-income Nigerians into the tax net?

That is the core argument in this essay by Emmanuel Orjih, first published by Crossfire Reports and republished here with permission. (crossfirereports.com)

A real-life test case: Joseph and ₦75,000/month

Orjih frames the debate through a single person—“Joseph,” a 20-year-old relative living in the family village home. Joseph earns ₦75,000/month, lives simply, and is trying to get into tertiary school. (crossfirereports.com)

At a tax explainer session with senior tax officials in Abuja, Orjih asked a straightforward question: Would Joseph pay tax under the new regime? He was initially told no. (crossfirereports.com)

So Orjih did what policy should always withstand: the arithmetic.

Officials listed multiple deductions Joseph was supposedly entitled to, but after matching each to Joseph’s situation, the discussion narrowed. Orjih’s account says the only relevant deductible left was pension, estimated at 8%. (crossfirereports.com)

After that pension deduction, Joseph’s taxable income was recalculated to about ₦69,000/month—and that’s where the conversation shifted. According to Orjih, officials reversed course and conceded that Joseph would indeed fall into a taxable bracket under the new regime. (crossfirereports.com)

His conclusion is blunt:

Nigeria’s poor are about to start paying taxes. (crossfirereports.com)

What the law says (and where the “tax net” begins)

Under the Nigeria Tax Act, 2025, the Fourth Schedule sets individual income tax bands after reliefs and exemptions. The first ₦800,000 of taxable income is taxed at 0%, then the next band is taxed at 15%, with higher bands rising progressively. (Premium Times Nigeria)

That ₦800,000/year threshold is important because it translates to about ₦66,667/month. If your taxable income creeps above that—even slightly—you can move from “no tax” to “some tax,” even if the amount is small in absolute terms.

This is the crux of Orjih’s “Joseph math”: once deductions are applied, Joseph’s taxable income (as presented in the essay) still ends up above the “first ₦800,000 at 0%” threshold—meaning some portion could become taxable. (crossfirereports.com)

The poverty line problem: “Poor” doesn’t mean “no PAYE”

Orjih argues that the real debate isn’t whether the system has a 0% band—it’s whether Nigeria is redefining who counts as “too poor to tax.”

He points to the World Bank’s approach to poverty measurement, including the $4.20/day poverty line often used for lower-middle-income country comparisons. (World Bank)Using that framework, he estimates a Nigeria-specific monthly poverty line around ₦190,000/month, and argues that Joseph (₦75,000/month) is clearly “poor” by that yardstick. (crossfirereports.com)

Separately, World Bank-linked reporting in Nigeria has recently put the number of Nigerians living in poverty at roughly 139 million (estimate cited in 2025 commentary). (Punch Newspapers)

Orjih’s point: if poverty is that widespread, any “widen the tax base” strategy risks landing on people who are already struggling—even if government messaging suggests otherwise. (crossfirereports.com)

“Widening the tax base” — and the trust deficit

One of the stated goals of the new regime, Orjih notes, is to widen the tax base—policy language that sounds neutral until you ask: widen it to include whom? (crossfirereports.com)

Orjih then asks a harder question Nigerians ask every day:

If government already collects money, why does life still feel like survival?

He lists multiple public revenue streams Nigerians have heard about for years—budgets, loans, oil revenues, “subsidy savings,” VAT, recovered loot—and argues that without a clear improvement in accountability and service delivery, asking low-income Nigerians to contribute more will deepen distrust. (crossfirereports.com)

Why timing matters: taxing into inflation and hardship

Orjih’s essay also argues that raising broad-based taxes during severe economic strain is risky and potentially counterproductive—especially when households are already pressured by inflation, weak wages, unemployment, and thin safety nets. (crossfirereports.com)

In other words: even if the law is legally sound, sequencing matters. He argues reforms should prioritize stabilizing prices and strengthening protections first, before expanding taxes downward. (crossfirereports.com)

The Abuja question becomes Nigeria’s question

This started as one Abuja moment: a citizen pressing officials to defend the arithmetic of their own policy. But it ends as a national dilemma:

• If you widen the tax base, does that mean more poor people pay?

• If poor people pay, what exactly do they get in return—quickly, visibly, measurably?

• And how does government rebuild enough trust to make compliance feel fair?

Orjih closes by urging Nigerians to educate themselves and points readers to StopThisTax.org. (crossfirereports.com)

Source & credit

This article is republished/adapted for AbujaCity.com with permission from the author Emmanuel Orjih. Original publication: Crossfire Reports. (crossfirereports.com)