Rising Revenue Allocation, Rising Poverty, and other Ironies -By Abdulkadir Salaudeen

Many unbelievable things are not only believable in Nigeria, they are a reality. Harsh reality. One of such is the monthly distribution of money by government among itself while the masses are entrapped in the morass of poverty. How can anyone believe this? One thing about reality is that it does not need to be believed by anyone nor does it need anyone’s endorsement. Believe it or not, reality will not change.

The reality is that the Tinubu government has got a lot of money in its purse. This is one of its greatest “achievements.” Before we celebrate the government for this, it is not out of order to ask why the government would always have to go cap in hand to seek foreign loans despite the revenue accrued to it monthly. The highest Federation Account Allocation Committee FAAC monthly allocation in Nigeria since 1999 is the N2.225 trillion disbursed in August 2025. It is the highest monthly allocation ever distributed to the three tiers of government if we assumed the local government is also a tier.

Commending himself, President Tinubu enthusiastically announced that Nigeria hit its 2025 revenue target in August largely from the non-oil sector. If the money is largely from non-oil sector, where is it from? Here is the breakdown: Statutory Revenue N1.478tn, Value Added Tax N672.903bn, Electronic Money Transfer Levy N32.338bn, and Exchange Difference N41.284bn. 

The Value Added Tax alone constitutes about 30 percent of the revenue shared by FAAC. This is the money paid by Nigerians as final consumers to the government but with nothing to show for it. This is not to talk about the Electronic Money Transfer Levy. Is “the money paid by Nigerians” the right phrase to use to describe VAT? It will be the right phrase if the money is being used to benefit Nigerians. But this money is regularly shared by the federal and state governments for a purpose best known to them. Its reflection is not seen in the health or education sector or any sector from which Nigerians would reap some real benefits. 

To describe the Value Added Tax as it is, it is the money the government “steals” from Nigeria in a reverse-Robin-Hood manner. This is a situation where the poor are being robbed to give to the rich. The poor are Nigerians. The rich is the government. This explains why Nigerian governors are overly happy with President Tinubu and fulsome in their praise for him over the windfall that continues to come their way—first of its kind in Nigerian history. Governors are literally drenched in money. Ironically, the masses are literally wasting away in squalor—living a meaningless life with a firsthand experience of crude poverty that embraces them tightly in a manner a loving mother would cuddle her baby.

Governors do not need to account for the increasing monthly allocation. All they need to do is to continue to sing on “Your Mandate We Stand” and ensure that the President coast to victory at the poll in 2027. The federal government also does not have to charge governors to show evidence for money allocated to them. All that President Tinubu needs to do when the masses shout of hunger is to instruct the governors to “wet the grass small.” Not even to wet it well. What is required from our governors from the President is the minimum pretense to governance which might not be qualified with “good” on the assumption that good governance had been killed and buried long time ago in Nigeria.

Yet, the government is not done. VAT is not enough. Other taxes to be imposed on the masses to “satiate” the insatiable appetite of our rulers are in the pipeline. The proposed 5% tax on petroleum products is an example. The Trade Union Congress calls it an “act of economic wickedness” against already overburdened Nigerians. That is understatement. If the federal government bows to pressure on this, its succumbing is just temporary. It will devise other means to get what it wants from the masses. Nigerians don’t know anything. We are under a federal government with a large pool of financial experts who do not have a working idea of creating wealth but of extracting wealth from emaciated citizens. 

Nigeria is full of ironies. Here are some ironies. The more revenues are generated, the more poverty in the land. The more government increases spendings to combat insecurity, the more insecurity. The more the government continue to create more universities, the more students continue to fail. The more Nigerian graduates are hopeless and hapless, the more parents are desperate to send their wards to higher institutions. The more prices of food are said to be coming down, the more costly is the price of fertilizer. 

That is not all, the more Nigerian first class graduates walk the street day and night in search of non-existing jobs, the more undergraduates in our universities are working, reading, and studying hard to graduate with first class to secure a better future. The more the Ministry of Health informs smokers that they are liable to die young, the more smokers are becoming addicts. The more our universities graduate medical doctors, the more our hospitals suffer dearth of doctors. The more our ruling politicians fail to discharge their duty by not fulfilling promises made during campaigns, the more we troop out to vote for them and make a long procession to welcome them at social events.

Let me add this which may be a bit controversial. The more intelligent you are, the more irrelevant you are likely to be. Yes, you may want to disagree. But when you think of Nigerian teachers and those intelligent guys in your class while in school you may see yourself agreeing with what is not agreeable to you. The more you work hard, the more you earn less. The more you act shamelessly like a bootlicking sycophant, the more you are appreciated by our rulers. The more you try to maintain your integrity, the more you often find yourself in the gutter. This country no balance at all. The instances I gave may not always be the case. They may not fit every situation. Yet, they cannot be ruled out.

The list is not exhaustive. But let me end the instances of Nigeria’s many ironies with this. The more Nigerians are religious, the more they are corrupt. They more we build churches and mosques, the further we are from God. Has anyone observed that under the Muslim-Muslim government, the Muslims are complaining of marginalization? This is a classic case of irony in Nigeria.

This column does not in anyway encourage Nigerians not to be responsible, hardworking, intelligent, or religious. It is just a philosophical musings about existential ironies—the dialectic contradictions or paradoxes and unexpected twists that arise from Nigerians’ condition. Our rulers should wet the grass small and make the rising revenue translate into rising comfort for citizens. 

But wait o, with this rising revenue and the trillions of naira the FAAC shared monthly among the three tiers of government, why does the government still need to seek foreign loans? This one pass my understanding o!

Abdulkadir Salaudeen 

salahuddeenabdulkadir@gmail.com