(President Bola Tinubu. Photo by Business Post Nigeria)
President Bola Tinubu has declared that true citizenship is inseparable from the obligation to pay taxes, asserting that anyone who does not contribute to government revenue through taxation and is not legally exempted cannot fully claim to be a citizen.
The President made this statement on Friday at the Africa CEO Forum taking place in Rwanda, where he made a strong case for taxation as a fundamental pillar of national development.
He acknowledged that paying taxes is not something people do willingly, yet everyone expects to benefit from the infrastructure and services that government spending provides.
Tinubu argued that development comes at a cost that must be honestly confronted, posing a series of rhetorical questions to drive home his point.
He asked how governments are expected to build quality roads, equip hospitals, care for vulnerable populations, protect future generations, and fund pharmaceutical research without a reliable tax base.
He also noted the lesson of the COVID-19 pandemic, which exposed how unprepared governments can be when unexpected crises demand enormous financial resources.
The President stressed that in an uncertain world, governments must be deliberate and strategic about how they generate and deploy funds, with taxation at the center of that plan.
He drew a clear distinction between those who contribute to public finances and those who do not, stating that a taxpaying individual or corporate entity whether wealthy, middle class, or poor is a true citizen, while someone who neither pays taxes nor holds a legal exemption falls outside that definition.
