Opinion

Zacch Adedeji: From Revenue Collection to Fiscal Transformation

Published

2 months ago

July 23, 2026

By Arabinrin Aderonke

Every generation produces public servants whose influence reaches beyond the offices they occupy. They redefine institutions, challenge entrenched assumptions and leave behind systems that continue to deliver long after they have gone. In less than three years, Zacch Adedeji has shown every sign that he belongs to that category.

When President Bola Ahmed Tinubu appointed him first as Special Adviser on Revenue and subsequently as Executive Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service, now the Nigeria Revenue Service, the assignment was neither glamorous nor easy. Nigeria faced declining fiscal space, rising debt obligations, low tax compliance, multiple taxation, an outdated legal framework and an overdependence on oil revenue. The challenge was not simply to collect more taxes. It was to redesign the country’s revenue architecture.

That assignment demanded more than technical knowledge. It required vision, courage, political dexterity and the ability to build consensus around difficult reforms. Those qualities have become the defining features of Adedeji’s leadership. Perhaps his greatest contribution is that he has shifted the conversation from ordinary tax collection to a more robust tax administration. The difference is significant. Tax collection focuses on today’s revenue. Tax administration builds the systems that guarantee tomorrow’s revenue. Sustainable economic development depends on the latter.

Working closely with President Tinubu and the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, Adedeji played a central role in delivering the most extensive overhaul of Nigeria’s tax system in decades. The signing into law of the Nigeria Tax Act, the Nigeria Tax Administration Act, the Nigeria Revenue Service (Establishment) Act and the Joint Revenue Board (Establishment) Act constituted a turning point in Nigeria’s fiscal history.

For decades, Nigeria’s tax laws evolved in fragments. Different statutes often overlapped, created uncertainty for investors and imposed multiple compliance obligations on businesses. The new legal framework seeks to harmonise tax administration, simplify compliance, eliminate duplication and strengthen coordination among federal, state and local revenue authorities. More importantly, it provides a predictable tax environment that improves investor assurance while reducing the cost of doing business.

One of the defining philosophies behind the reforms is fairness. Rather than pursuing aggressive taxation, the objective is to broaden the tax base, improve voluntary compliance as well as protect small businesses while making sure that those who should pay taxes actually do so. This approach illustrates global best practice. Countries with the strongest tax systems count less on coercion and more on trust, honesty and efficient administration.

Technology has equally become the engine of the reforms. Adedeji understands that a modern economy cannot be supported by analogue institutions. Under his leadership, the Service has accelerated digital transformation through initiatives such as REV360 and expanded electronic tax administration systems that minimise human contact, minimise leakages, improve transparency and make compliance easier for taxpayers. His private sector experience has clearly shaped his belief that public institutions must embrace innovation if they are to remain efficient.

The results are beginning to validate the reforms. In the first half of the year alone, the Service recorded a historic ₦28.3 trillion in revenue collection in 2025, representing roughly a 30 percent increase over the previous year. The momentum has continued in 2026, with revenue collections exceeding ₦21.6 trillion in the first half of the year alone. Value Added Tax collections have also continued to grow, demonstrating that stronger administration and better compliance can produce better outcomes than simply increasing tax rates.

Yet, numbers alone do not tell the full story. Revenue growth matters because it creates fiscal space for government to invest in roads, schools, hospitals, security, social services and critical infrastructure. Strong domestic revenue also reduces dependence on borrowing and strengthens Nigeria’s economic durability at a time of global uncertainty. In that sense, tax reform is not purely an economic policy. It is a nation-building strategy.

Beyond just policy and performance, Adedeji has earned a reputation for thoughtful leadership. Those who have worked with him frequently describe a leader who combines intellectual depth with emotional intelligence. He is known for listening carefully, encouraging professional debate, remaining steady under pressure and empowering competent people to deliver results. In public administration, where reforms regularly fail because people resist change, these qualities are invaluable.

It is therefore not surprising that President Tinubu continues to repose enormous confidence in him. Revenue reform sits at the heart of the administration’s Renewed Hope economic agenda. Without stronger domestic revenue mobilisation, fiscal stability, infrastructure improvement and long-term economic growth would remain difficult to achieve. The President needed a reformer capable of translating ambitious policy into measurable outcomes, and Adedeji has demonstrated the discipline and competence required for that responsibility.

No serious institutional reform is completed within three years. Building enduring institutions necessitates patience, consistency and continuous improvement. Even though challenges remain, the foundations have undoubtedly been laid. Nigeria now has a more coherent legal framework, stronger digital capacity, improved taxpayer engagement and a revenue administration that is increasingly aligned with international top practice.

History will ultimately judge Dr. Zacch Adelabu Adedeji not simply by the trillions of naira collected during his tenure but by whether the institutions he is building continue to serve Nigeria long after his time in office. On the evidence so far, he has moved beyond managing a revenue agency to leading one of the most significant fiscal transformations in the country’s democratic history.

Three years is a short time in the life of any nation. Yet, it has been long enough to demonstrate that with clear vision, sound policy and disciplined execution, meaningful reform is possible. For Dr. Zacch Adedeji, the achievements recorded so far appear to be only the beginning. The real legacy may well lie in the stronger, smarter and more resilient tax system he is building for generations to come.

Arabinrin Aderonke is an award-winning investigative journalist, 2016 finalist, CNN African Journalist Award, she currently serves as a Deputy Director, Corporate Communications Department and Technical Advisor to the Executive Chairman, Nigeria Revenue Service.

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Opinion

A Comedy of Errors of the Framework Il-literati

Published

11 hours ago

October 1, 2026

The Gleamer

By Kehinde Bamigbetan

The narrative is simple. On September 24, 2026, the Ministry of Solid Minerals Development issued a press statement on the groundbreaking signing of the Framework of Investment in the solid minerals sector by Nigeria and the United States at the Nigerian Mission in New York, United States.

The statement quoted the Honourable Minister of Solid Minerals, Dele Alake, extensively on Nigeria’s expectations and set boundaries for the conduct of the joint signatories in executing the framework.

The most poignant part of his declaration deserves emphasis: ‘But let me be clear about Nigeria’s ambition. We are not here to remain a source of raw material for values that others create. Our goal is to turn potential into lasting values at home through stronger local processing, new skills, quality jobs and new opportunities for Nigerian businesses”

Witnesses at the event saw that Alake’s patriotic demand excited his guest. US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau showed excellent diplomatic camaraderie by acknowledging Nigeria’s duty to determine its priority in the Framework. He agreed that Nigeria’s demography and economy make it a regional power with huge continental responsibilities, adding that the US would support leveraging the Framework to advance Nigeria’s national interests.

Alake’s advocacy, by historical precedent and contemporary discourse, is as anti-colonial and anti-imperialist as could be. Were the country not festered by “naboobs of negativism”, it should have earned a heroic applause and hosting of red homecoming flags.

But a section of the commentariat, posing as the finest breed of the literati, had barely digested the content before invading the media- print, electronic, digital and social- with tomes and tones of desperate gobbledegook, unleashing its noxious hallucination and nightmarish schizophrenia on the reading public.

Please dismiss the adversarial calculations and manipulations of the firm of Von Batten- Montague, the official agent provocateur of perennial presidential runner and serial loser Alhaji Abubakar Atiku. Its anti-President Tinubu lobby, from waking the Chicago papers to spinning a Tinubu-Trump meeting yarn, is a voodoo ritual of making corpses walk than professional political marketing. With an unprecedented $ 1.2 million budget, Von Batten is set to plunge his principal into a predictable Waterloo.

Let us also dismiss political opponents, Tinubu haters and confessed annihilators of the ruling All Progressives Congress. Their jaundiced, atavistic rivalry to unseat a progressive administration by hook or crook, including through misinformation and disinformation, calumniating propaganda and digital savagery, already places them outside the precincts of objectivity and fair comment.

The segment of our particular concern is those who pretend to diagnose and analyse, that is, engage in what journalists call informed commentary. This genre is critical to the press because it fulfils the Fourth Estate’s role in holding the other three estates to account. Media awards organisations such as the Diamonds Awards for Media Excellence, DAME and Nigeria Media Merit Awards evaluate its quality and celebrate the expertise of its most creative wordsmiths.

The reason is simple. Informed commentary is the unrivalled forte of the literati- writers, rigorous in research and prodigious in elucidation, yet literary in stringing words that taste sweeter than salt.

The golden rule of informed commentary is sacrosanct: facts are sacred, opinions are free! To worship facts with logical reverence is the literati’s exceptional trait, the traction that delivers their ascendancy.

Unfortunately, the tragedy that befell the genre after signing the Framework is that those who violated the portals and platforms of public discourse broke the golden rule by demonstrating zero fidelity to facts.. With selfish obsession to trend and gain folowers, the “illiterati” betrays a lack of preparation and polish for public discourse. The illiterati arrogantly and lazily strut and stroll across platforms, purveying fallacies as logic and falsehood as facts.

To begin, what in global diplomatic parlance is a Framework? Four decades ago, you needed a dictionary; a decade ago, you would Google. Today, ask AI.Gemini told me: “In diplomatic parlance, a framework (often called a framework agreement, diplomatic framework, or conceptual framework) refers to a foundational structure, set of guidelines, or overarching agreement established by negotiating states to manage bilateral or multilateral relations, guide future negotiations, or address complex, long-term issues.

Rather than settling every granular detail immediately, a framework provides the architecture and rules of engagement for ongoing diplomacy.”

If only the illiterati educated themselves, they wouldn’t go gaga all over the media, infecting innocent readers, listeners, and viewers with rubbish like a $700 billion deal. They turned a contextual information about the estimated value of minerals into a transactional contract!

And this is where the comedy of errors titillates. When I told a journalist that his slug insinuating a $ 700 billion deal was a fabrication, he replied innocently that it was just a caption and that the body of the story carried the authentic information! A slug, not a caption, pegs a story, and it is indeed an egregious error that both should differ in meaning.

He wasn’t alone. Unable to resist the temptation to attract readers with the big figure, a few journalists

took the figure out of context, giving the impression that Nigeria signed away all her minerals.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Delivering the keynote address at the just-concluded annual conference of the Guild of Editors, His Royal Majesty Nnaemeka Achebe, the Obi of Onitsha, counselled:

“In the old order, being first was honour. In this new order, being first with a lie dressed as news is a betrayal of public trust, however unintentional.” Wouldn’t it be refreshing to read the corrigenda of such media organisations tomorrow? I am sure all of us who still believe in the credibility of the media will be glad.

But the most notorious are content creators who latched on this ignorance to excite their followers. Their ad hominem fallacy leaves the subject of the Framework and tries to turn Alake’s professional pedigree in mass communications into a liability. They tried in vain to cast a character out of sync with his working environment.

Such impressions contradict the evidence.Such erroneous misunderstanding of public administration conveniently forgets the crucial role of the bureaucracy as the permanent technical corps of government. Alake is professionally supported by a permanent secretary, Engr Yusuf Yabo; directors-generals of agencies such as the Nigerian Geological Survey Agency, Prof Segun Ige; the Nigerian Mining Cadastral Office, Engr Simon Nkom; the Council of Mining Engineers, Professor Opafunsho; and the Executive Secretary of Solid Minerals Development Fund, Hajiya Fatima Shinkafi. Besides, well-groomed aides tracking the strategic implementation of policies, a layer of competent directors who have honed their skills and expertise over three decades are at his beck and call.

With this array of intellectuals, governance is collaborative. Files are referred to specialised departments for interrogation, implementation and decisions are taken based on sound logic and verifiable facts.

Beyond the popular aphorism that journalists are jack of all trades and masters of all because of their professional exposure to all matters of public interest, Alake holds the extraordinary distinction of strategic communications and innovation, crisis management, and visionary leadership.

His political role is to accomplish the manifesto of the All Progressives Congress as encapsulated in President Tinubu’ Renewed Hope Agenda, cascaded to the Ministry as the Seven Point Agenda. In three years, he has delivered key agenda items, including establishing the Nigeria Solid Minerals Company and the Mining Marshals, increasing the registration of artisanal co-operatives, and raising revenues from N6 billion in 2023 to N70 billion this year.

The minister is most passionate about value addition, based on his determination to reverse the colonial baggage of unequal exchange. His advocacy inspired mining ministers in Africa to set up the Africa Minerals Strategy Group and earned him and Nigeria the pioneer chairmanship of that group.

The critics did not only confuse ministerial portfolio with technical consultancy, by presenting the Framework as a kind of sell-out, they display unpardonable ignorance of four decades of Nigeria’s pro-foreign-investor conversation. The Structural Adjustment Programme launched this policy in 1987 and codified it in privatisation and commercialisation laws. This policy guarantees full repatriation of profits to foreign investors and set up free trade zones as tax havens.

The beauty of our mining laws is that they have not thrown the baby out with the bathwater. Illiteracy is not just the inability to read; it also includes the laziness to employ that skill to gather intelligence for public discourse.

The ignorant illiterate have not bothered to read the regulatory regime that the Nigerian Minerals and Mining Act 2007 and Regulations 2011 impose on mining companies. They don’t know that no foreigner can legitimately and legally hold a small-scale licence, an exclusive preserve of Nigerian citizens. They don’t know that the traditional authority or landowner must write a letter of consent before a prospective miner can obtain a licence over the area. Such built-in guarantees are beyond the conception and imagination of the illiterate, rendering their competition to outdo each other in poking fingers at the framework a grandiloquent exercise in cerebral vacuity.

Alake has enforced the mining laws to sanitise the sector and promote value addition. With his directive compelling all mining licence applicants to submit local processing plans, the value-addition policy has gained traction and attracted over $3 billion in three years. Lithium concentrates and gold refineries are springing up; the era of pit to port will end soon as raw minerals without value addition can no longer pass through Customs.

As we move into the campaigns for general elections, more controversies are providing opportunities for robust debates. Democracy needs enlightened discourses, not an aggressive parade of ignorance. The lesson from the Framework controversy is the need to understand what we reject even more than what we accept.

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