Featured

Three Years On, Adedeji’s Revenue Revolution Transforms Nigeria’s Tax System

Published

2 weeks ago

September 18, 2026

By Arabinrin Aderonke

Three years is a long enough period in public service to distinguish between activity and impact. It is long enough to look beyond speeches, launches and promises and ask a simple question: what has changed? In the case of Dr Zacch Adedeji, the answer lies in the numbers, the technology, the laws, the institutions, and even in a building that had stood unfinished for more than two decades.

Since he assumed leadership of the Federal Inland Revenue Service in September 2023, Nigeria’s revenue administration has undergone one of its most significant transformations, with collections rising dramatically, technology moving to the centre of tax administration and a new institutional framework emerging under the Nigeria Revenue Service.

The revenue numbers provide perhaps the clearest timeline of the transformation. Tax collections were about ₦12.3 trillion in 2023, the year Adedeji assumed office. They rose to about ₦21 trillion in 2024, then reached ₦28.3 trillion in 2025, surpassing the year’s target of ₦25.2 trillion. The momentum has continued into 2026.

In the first six months of this year alone, the Nigeria Revenue Service generated ₦21.6 trillion, compared with ₦14.27 trillion in the corresponding period of 2025, representing a 49 per cent increase. These figures matter not simply because they represent more money in government coffers, but because they point to a broader shift toward stronger domestic revenue mobilisation and reduced dependence on volatile revenue sources.

What makes the story more interesting is that revenue growth has come alongside a fundamental change in how taxes are administered. Adedeji’s tenure has increasingly placed technology at the heart of the revenue system, moving the institution away from processes that depended heavily on paperwork and physical interaction. Rev360, launched in 2026, is a major expression of that transformation.

The platform is designed to give taxpayers a more integrated digital experience across key services and interactions with the revenue authority. It is part of a wider digital strategy aimed at simplifying compliance, improving data visibility, and reducing the friction that has historically characterised interactions between taxpayers and tax authorities.

The same philosophy is evident in the move towards electronic invoicing and digital fiscal systems. E-invoicing creates greater visibility over transactions, strengthens the revenue authority’s ability to verify declarations, and reduces opportunities for under-reporting.

For businesses, the long-term benefit is a more predictable, technology-driven compliance environment. The objective is not technology for technology’s sake. It is to create a tax system where government can see more of the economy while legitimate businesses can comply without unnecessary bureaucracy. That is a significant departure from an older model in which tax administration was often associated with paperwork, physical visits and multiple layers of interaction.

The policy reforms have provided the legal foundation for this transformation. The new tax laws that took effect in January 2026 brought together a previously fragmented framework and introduced clearer rules for tax administration. The Nigeria Tax Act, Nigeria Tax Administration Act, Nigeria Revenue Service Establishment Act and Joint Revenue Board of Nigeria Establishment Act collectively represent a major restructuring of the country’s tax architecture. One key objective is to simplify compliance, clarify responsibilities, and reduce duplication. The reforms also seek to address the long-standing concerns around overlapping taxes and multiple demands on businesses.

While it would be premature to claim that every instance of multiple taxation has disappeared, the reforms clearly point toward harmonisation, greater certainty, and a simpler relationship between taxpayers and government.

That institutional shift is captured in the transition from FIRS to NRS. The change is more than a new name. The Nigeria Revenue Service reflects a broader approach to revenue mobilisation and administration, with stronger emphasis on collaboration, data and integration. Revenue collection increasingly requires agencies to work together rather than operate in silos.

The National Single Window is one example, bringing relevant agencies involved in trade processes into a more coordinated digital environment. Better synergy among revenue and trade-related agencies can reduce duplication, improve efficiency and ultimately make it easier for businesses to operate.

Improvements in staff allowances and welfare have also been an important part of the transformation, because a high-performing revenue service requires a motivated and properly equipped workforce.

The deliberate infusion of young professionals into the Service has brought fresh energy, digital skills, and new ideas, strengthening the NRS’s capacity to deliver on its expanding mandate. A better-supported workforce, combined with new talent and technology, is ultimately reflected in the Service’s growing efficiency, stronger revenue performance and ability to engage taxpayers in a more modern and responsive way.

Then there is the story of the headquarters, which may be the most powerful physical symbol of the institutional transformation. For more than 20 years, the building remained unfinished, a familiar reminder of projects that had outlived several administrations. Under Adedeji’s leadership, the abandoned project was revived and completed. In April 2026, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu commissioned the 16-storey NRS headquarters, a modern facility designed to accommodate about 3,000 staff and equipped with a data processing centre, training facilities, an auditorium, a clinic, a library, and a gym. A project that had spent more than two decades waiting for completion was finally brought back to life.

The significance of these achievements becomes clearer when viewed together. The story is not just about a revenue authority collecting more money. It is about an institution being rebuilt around technology, stronger laws, better coordination, improved infrastructure and a more modern understanding of the taxpayer. From ₦12.3 trillion in 2023 to ₦28.3 trillion in 2025, and ₦21.6 trillion in just six months of 2026, the revenue trajectory is striking. But the more enduring dividend may be the systems being put in place to sustain that growth.

Three years after Zach Adedeji took charge, Nigeria’s revenue administration looks markedly different. The tax system is becoming more digital. Revenue mobilisation is becoming more data-driven. Tax laws are becoming more consolidated. Government agencies are working towards greater synergy. Businesses are being brought into a more structured compliance environment. And an institution once operating from an unfinished building now has a headquarters befitting a modern national revenue authority.

The journey is far from over. The country still has significant room to expand its tax base, improve taxpayer confidence and ensure that increased revenue translates into better public outcomes. But three years is enough time to recognise a transformation already underway.The numbers have moved. The technology has moved. The laws have moved. The institution has moved. And, perhaps most importantly, Nigeria’s revenue administration is moving with them.

…Arabinrin Aderonke MNIPR is an award-winning investigative journalist, 2014 Laureate of the Wole Soyinka Investigative Journalism Award, and a 2016 CNN finalist. She’s the Technical Assistant, Broadcast Media, to the Executive Chairman of the Nigeria Revenue Service

Share on Facebook

Business

Turning Africa’s Raw Materials Into Wealth: The ARMS 2026 Industrial Agenda

Published

2 days ago

September 29, 2026

The Gleamer

By Joel Ajayi

For decades, Africa’s vast natural resources have powered industries and economies far beyond the continent, while many African countries have remained largely exporters of unprocessed commodities and importers of finished products.

That familiar pattern is now coming under renewed scrutiny as policymakers, researchers, investors and industrialists seek to change the direction of Africa’s resource economy.

At the centre of that conversation is the second edition of the Africa Raw Materials Summit (ARMS 2026), scheduled for October 19 and 20 at the Abuja Continental Hotel, Abuja, under the theme: “From African Feedstock to African Factories.”

Organised by the Raw Materials Research and Development Council (RMRDC), the summit is being positioned as more than another gathering of policymakers and industry stakeholders. It is intended to provide a platform for confronting the structural challenges that have kept African raw materials largely disconnected from local manufacturing.

Africa has for years operated largely within a “pit-to-port” economic model, exporting raw materials while importing expensive finished products.

Speaking at a press conference ahead of the summit on Tuesday in Abuja, the Director-General and Chief Executive Officer of RMRDC, Prof. Nnanyelugo Martin Ike-Muonso, said the event would bring together policymakers, investors, researchers, technology providers and industrialists to develop practical strategies for transforming Africa’s abundant natural resources into industrial wealth.

The challenge, therefore, is not simply the abundance of resources, but the continent’s ability to transform those resources into industrial value, employment, technology and wealth within Africa.

Nigeria alone, according to the RMRDC, has more than $582.4 billion in documented non-renewable natural resources, while the wider continent possesses substantial deposits of critical minerals, agricultural raw materials and industrial feedstock.

Yet, the benefits of this resource endowment have often been constrained by inadequate processing capacity, weak infrastructure, limited technology, financing gaps and fragmented regional value chains.

From Dialogue to Industrial Action

ARMS 2026 builds on the maiden edition held in May 2025, which attracted more than 1,000 delegates from across the world.

The inaugural summit also witnessed the unveiling of the Ten-Year Raw Materials Transformation Roadmap (2025–2034) by the Minister of State for Industry, Senator John Owen Enoh.

The roadmap was designed around areas including technological capability, climate-resilient processing and backward integration, establishing a policy framework for greater domestic utilisation of Africa’s raw materials.

The second edition is expected to move the conversation further by bringing policy, capital, technology and industrial stakeholders around practical mechanisms for turning raw materials into locally manufactured products.

One of the major proposals highlighted by the RMRDC is the 30 per cent Mandatory Value Addition Bill, which seeks to establish a statutory minimum level of value addition to Nigerian raw materials before export.

The Council says the proposed framework could support job creation, import substitution, foreign-exchange conservation and increased manufacturing contribution to the economy.

Building the Infrastructure for Value Addition

The industrial transformation envisaged by ARMS 2026 goes beyond legislation.

A major concern is the “missing middle” between where raw materials are produced and where factories are located.

Poor transportation networks, inadequate cold-chain facilities, weak rural roads, limited testing and certification infrastructure and border-related delays can make locally sourced materials more expensive and less competitive.

Consequently, logistics and infrastructure constitute one of the five principal pillars of the summit.

The objective is to develop more reliable corridors connecting farms and mines with processing centres and manufacturing facilities, thereby reducing losses and improving the movement of industrial inputs.

The Digital Dimension

Technology is also becoming an important part of the Council’s strategy.

The RMRDC says it has developed the Nigeria Integrated Information Statistical System for Raw Materials and Products (NISSRAMP), described as a digital repository containing information on feedstock deposits, specifications, production outputs and industrial absorption rates.

The Council has also highlighted its transition towards paperless operations and its certification as a Data Controller/Processor of Major Importance by the Nigeria Data Protection Commission.

Such digital infrastructure could provide investors and manufacturers with better information about the availability and characteristics of raw materials while supporting more informed industrial planning.

Turning Waste Into Industrial Inputs

Another major component of ARMS 2026 is the proposed expansion of the circular economy.

The summit will examine how agricultural by-products, mine tailings, scrap metals and biomass can be recovered and reused as inputs for new production processes rather than being treated simply as waste.

The RMRDC argues that such an approach could lower raw-material costs while supporting more sustainable and climate-resilient manufacturing systems.

For Africa, where industrial expansion must increasingly balance economic development with environmental considerations, waste industrialisation could become an important part of the continent’s manufacturing conversation.

From National Production to African Value Chains

The African Continental Free Trade Area is another important element of the summit’s agenda.

The RMRDC sees AfCFTA as an opportunity to create regional value chains in which raw materials sourced in one African country can be processed and supplied to manufacturers in another.

Under such a model, Africa would move beyond simply exporting commodities to external markets and develop stronger internal networks for supplying chemicals, refined minerals, agricultural inputs and other industrial materials across national borders.

This approach places regional integration at the heart of Africa’s industrialisation strategy.

Bridging Research and Capital

A recurring weakness in many developing economies is the gap between research and commercialisation.

Innovations may emerge from universities, research institutions and laboratories without receiving the financing, equipment or market connections required to become commercially viable.

ARMS 2026 intends to address that gap through technology commercialisation and capital linkages, connecting research outputs with investors, development finance institutions and industrial off-takers.

The RMRDC has also cited partnerships with the Bank of Industry for commercial-scale post-harvest processing and a South-South technology-transfer partnership with the National Innovation Centre par Excellence in Shanghai, China.

A Larger Industrial Conversation

The scale of ARMS 2026 is expected to be significantly larger than the maiden edition.

The organisers project more than 1,800 delegates from all 54 African countries and global industrial partners.

The programme will feature high-level policy dialogues, technical panels, an advanced raw materials and technology exhibition, industrial site visits and the African Raw Materials Industry Awards.

The exhibition, in particular, is expected to showcase locally fabricated processing machinery, advanced domestic materials, green chemicals and engineered commercial inputs.

Beyond the speeches and exhibitions, however, the real significance of ARMS 2026 will ultimately depend on what happens after the summit.

Africa’s challenge has never been a shortage of raw materials. The more difficult question has been how to transform those resources into factories, products, skilled employment, technology and sustainable economic opportunities.

For Nigeria and the rest of the continent, the proposed shift from “pit-to-port” to “feedstock-to-factory” therefore represents a broader debate about the future structure of African economies.

ARMS 2026 seeks to place that debate firmly on the industrial agenda — with value addition, technology, finance, infrastructure, circular production and regional trade at the centre.

If the commitments and partnerships generated by the summit translate into measurable industrial activity, the event could provide another platform for Africa to examine how its enormous resource base can support stronger domestic manufacturing.

The message from the organisers is clear: the continent’s raw materials should not only leave African soil as commodities; they should increasingly become the foundation for African industrial production

Share on Facebook