Emir of Kano and renowned economist, Muhammad Sanusi II, has thrown his weight behind Nigeria’s evolving taxation reforms, declaring that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is finally confronting tough economic decisions that successive administrations deliberately avoided.
Speaking on the need for a fair, broad-based, and efficient tax system, Sanusi argued that Nigeria’s long-standing dependence on oil revenues created a culture of fiscal laziness, shielding governments from accountability and starving critical sectors of sustainable funding. According to him, meaningful taxation—though often unpopular—is the backbone of serious governance.
“President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is doing the right thing now—what past governments refused to do,” Sanusi said, stressing that nations do not develop on subsidies and sentiments, but on discipline, productivity, and transparent taxation.
The former Central Bank governor noted that for decades, Nigeria postponed necessary tax reforms for political convenience, choosing short-term popularity over long-term stability. That avoidance, he said, weakened public institutions, deepened inequality, and left the economy dangerously exposed to global shocks.
Sanusi maintained that taxation is not merely about revenue generation but about building a social contract between the state and the citizen. When people pay taxes, he argued, they demand accountability, efficiency, and results—ingredients Nigeria has struggled to institutionalise.
Under Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the federal government has signaled a shift toward widening the tax net, blocking leakages, and reducing over-reliance on borrowing. While acknowledging that the reforms come with short-term pain, Sanusi insisted that postponing them would have been far more costly.
He cautioned critics against mistaking reform for punishment, noting that countries that escaped poverty did so by making hard fiscal choices at moments of crisis. “There is never a perfect time for reform,” he said. “Leadership is about acting when action is difficult.”
As debates over taxation, cost of living, and economic justice intensify nationwide, Sanusi’s intervention adds intellectual firepower to the reform camp—framing the Tinubu administration’s tax push not as political gamble, but as a long-delayed correction.
In his words, Nigeria is not being overtaxed; it is being under-reformed.
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