For too long, Nigerians have been victims of a silent economic robbery that has been carefully disguised as reform. It is a system that forces the poor to pay taxes without even knowing they are taxpayers. Every sachet of pure water, every plate of food in a roadside canteen, every ten thousand naira transfer, every recharge card, every litre of fuel, and even every phone call all carry hidden levies that quietly drain the blood of the masses while the ruling class pretends to be fixing the economy. What Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his economic team are planning for the year 2026 is not a new tax. It is a continuation and expansion of an old robbery that Nigerians have been suffering from for many years.
This so called Tax for All Nigerians is a political trick designed to legalize what is already happening in silence. It is not reform. It is rebranded oppression. Nigerians have been paying Value Added Tax, Stamp Duties, the Electronic Money Transfer Levy and other deductions long before any formal tax awareness campaign began. The fifty naira that OPay, PalmPay and commercial banks collect on every transfer above ten thousand naira is not their idea. It is a government-imposed levy. Every time a Nigerian sends or receives money, a fraction goes to the Federal Inland Revenue Service through these institutions.
But it goes even deeper. Nigerians are also paying secret telecommunications taxes hidden in every phone recharge, data bundle and call rate. Each time you recharge one hundred naira airtime, a percentage goes to the federal government through one regulatory charge or another. The Universal Service Provision Fund, the NCC levy and other charges are quietly built into the price of telecom services. When you buy data, make a call or subscribe to an internet plan, you are indirectly paying multiple layers of tax. MTN, Glo, Airtel and 9mobile all remit portions of what you spend to the government, yet the people never see any benefit in improved network, affordable data or national digital infrastructure.
So when Tinubu’s government talks about a new tax framework for 2026, what they truly mean is that they want to increase the rate of this invisible exploitation and give it a fancy new name. They want to make the robbery louder and legal. They want to squeeze every last drop of sweat from the masses who already feed the system without knowing it. The ruling class has perfected the art of making the oppressed pay for their own suffering.
A serious government would not be talking about new taxes in a country where there is no social contract between the leaders and the people. Where are the hospitals built with the existing taxes? Where are the good roads and functional schools? Where is affordable food, clean water or stable electricity? In every genuine democracy, taxation comes with accountability. But in Nigeria, taxation has become a legalized system of theft. The people pay while the elite share the loot.
Let us be clear. This 2026 tax agenda is not reform. It is an upgraded structure of exploitation. It is not about national growth. It is about deepening the pockets of a corrupt political class. The truth is that Nigerians have been paying tax since Value Added Tax was first introduced. They pay through every fuel purchase, every market transaction, every bank transfer, every phone recharge and every imported product that comes with duties. Yet they are told they are not taxpayers. The government has been robbing the masses quietly and now it wants to make the robbery official.
This is why Nigerians must not wait until 2026. The time to resist is now. We must reject every attempt to increase or formalize hidden taxation. We must rise as one people and say that enough is enough. The problem is not that Nigerians do not pay tax. The problem is that the government steals what is already collected. A nation that cannot show where the old taxes went has no moral or legal right to impose new ones.
Our struggle must go beyond rejecting Tinubu’s tax. It must target the entire system of economic injustice. We must expose the lie that multiple taxation brings development. Development does not come from squeezing the poor. It comes from visionary leadership, disciplined management and transparent governance. It comes from investing in people, not punishing them.
The ordinary trader in Onitsha, the okada rider in Warri, the teacher in Ekiti, the tailor in Aba and the factory worker in Lagos are already contributing more to the economy than the political elite who live off government funds. They are the real taxpayers. Yet, in Tinubu’s Nigeria, the more you work, the more you are taxed, and the less you get in return.
We must not be deceived by the economic grammar of technocrats. This 2026 tax plan is not about inclusion. It is about extraction. It is about taking from those who have nothing left to give and protecting those who have looted enough to last ten lifetimes. The same government that grants billions in tax holidays to foreign oil companies now wants to deduct tax from market women and pure water sellers. That is not reform. That is wickedness disguised as policy.
History has shown that no ruling class gives freedom voluntarily. The people must demand it. Nigerians must organize, mobilize and resist this daylight robbery. The unions must wake up. The students must wake up. The market women and transport workers must rise in unity. The civil servants, the artisans and the unemployed must all understand that this is not a policy debate. It is a fight for economic survival.
We cannot wait until 2026 to react. By then, the policy will be law and the suffering will be permanent. The resistance must start now. Nigerians must understand that they have been paying tax secretly for years through everything they buy, send and use. This next move is to make that exploitation permanent. If we allow it, we are signing our own economic death certificate.
Let us rise. Let us speak. Let us resist. Because silence now is the greatest betrayal of our own future and the generations to come.
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