By Paul Nwosu
Tax is the way to go in any economy that wants to stand the test of time. Any state in Nigeria depending only on going cap-in-hand to Abuja to take federal allocation based mainly on oil revenue is definitely doomed. Governor Charles Chukwuma Soludo has courageously led the charge of depending on tax revenue to engender development in Anambra State.
It is of course obvious that Governor Soludos positive disruptive change will meet with challenges from entrenched interests and quarters. There have been generations of Nigerians who are not aware that the different regions of the country before the oil boom built up their communities through taxes collected from the citizens.
Before the civil war, the Eastern Region that was adjudged as the fastest growing economy in the world depended on taxation to deliver development. The Western Region funded its Free Education policy through taxation. It was the same with the Northern Region.
Dr. Michael Iheonukara Okpara of the East championed the cause of palm produce and the tax collected therefrom led to the building of cities such as Enugu, Onitsha, Aba, Port Harcourt, Calabar, Uyo and Umuahia. In the West, Chief Obafemi Awolowo introduced a well-articulated tax regime on cocoa that led to rapid development of structures such as the Cocoa House and the first television station in Africa, the Western Nigeria Television in Ibadan. In the North, Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto, had his tax statutes comprehensively put in place that gave pride of place to the groundnut pyramids.
It is worthy of recognition that Governor Soludo is placing Anambra State back on the original pedestal of tax engagement with the populace. The people can no longer vainly hope for the fabled manna from heaven through the ruinous collection of federal allocation from Abuja. This type of feeding bottle federalism bodes ill for us all.
It does not help the development of any community when government money is seen as free money. A citizen who pays his tax will be very much interested in how the government spends the money.
The English philosopher Thomas Hobbes frowned at the state of nature in which life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. The other English philosopher, John Locke, and the French philosopher, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, upped the ante of Hobbes on the social contract theory in which individuals agree to give up their natural freedom to obtain the benefits of political order. This way, citizens elect leaders to deliver the goodies of democracy to the populace.
A situation where today the elected government is alienated from the people it ought to serve is a negation of the social contract. The correct order is for the people to employ the government and then surrender taxes to it for the betterment of the society through the provision of public goods such as security, infrastructure and sundry social services.
The responsible tax-paying citizen ought to hold the government accountable. As Governor Soludo said in his 2023 budget speech, Now that oil money is on its way out, and Nigeria increasingly has little choice but to rely on taxes to provide services to the citizens, there is the fundamental challenge of how to appropriately tax generations who do not know taxes as duty nor trust the government to use it well.
It is the tax collected from the people that builds roads, schools, hospitals and serves the society with security, electricity, potable water, and clean environment. A citizen that does not pay taxes would not be sure-footed in demanding for these services from the government.
The joy is that government of Anambra State under the watch of Professor Soludo has given the firm promise that all the tax revenues entrusted to the government will be completely accounted for. Every government project now bears the legend: “Your Tax Is Working For You”.
Sir Paul Nwosu
Commissioner for Information.
