Nigerians May Soon Pay Air Levy!

 By Casmir Igbokwe

Last week, when I wrote that this government lacks a human face, I never knew that more harsh policies were in the offing. If not that President Bola Tinubu is a Muslim, I would have thought that his other name is Zaccheus. The biblical short man called Zaccheus was a tax collector, deeply hated by the people. Although the first name of the executive chairman of our Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) is Zaccheus, he is innocent of the recent taxes the Federal Government imposed on Nigerians. 

*Tinubu

The most recent one is called cybersecurity levy. According to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), all money deposit banks, mobile money operators and payment service providers will soon begin to deduct 0.5 per cent on electronic transactions in line with Section 44 (2)(a) of the Cybercrimes (Amendment) Act, 2024. The levy is to be remitted to the National Cybersecurity Fund (NCF) administered by the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA). 

The government is expected to rake in trillions of naira from this exercise. One wonders what the business of ordinary Nigerians is with this so-called cybersecurity. Although media reports on Sunday, May 12, 2024, indicated that President Tinubu had asked the CBN to suspend the implementation of the policy and ordered a review. Suspension of the policy means it can still be reintroduced with minor changes after the ordered review. The policy should be cancelled outright.

This is not to lose sight of some other bank charges Nigerians are saddled with. We have stamp duty, electronic funds transfer charges, Value Added Tax (VAT), automated teller machine (ATM) withdrawal charges, naira debit/card charges, card maintenance fee for naira debit/credit cards, and so on. 

It appears the philosophy of this government is to generate more revenue by increasing the tax burden on citizens. As I noted in my intervention last week, the masses are going through excruciating hardship this period. Immediately this government came to power in May 2023, it removed fuel subsidy, which resulted in the astronomical hike in the price of fuel. Nigerians were yet to overcome that increase when the electricity tariff hike came. 

The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) grouped electricity consumers into five categories: Band A, B, C, D and E. The tariff increase affected only customers on Band A. But other categories are expected to join within a period of three years. From N68 per kilowatt-hour of electricity, the NERC jacked up the tariff to N225 per kWh. This tripled the expenses of many Nigerians on electricity alone. 

Following the outcry that greeted the tariff increase, the Federal Government reduced it from N225/kWh to N206.80/kWh. The government apparently wanted us to clap for this reduction. But it is too insignificant to warrant any applause. It’s like jumping from the third floor of a building down to the second floor. You are still on top of the building and have not jumped down. 

Many concerned groups and citizens, including the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA), and Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), have berated the CBN over the cybersecurity levy. They all demanded a reversal of the policy. 

The Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) faulted the timing of the levy, saying Nigerians were currently groaning under multiple taxation and inflationary pressures. It warned that, if this policy remained, several Nigerians would boycott electronic funds transfers.

There are 16 exemptions to the levy though. They include, among others, loan disbursements and repayments, salary payments, intra-account transfers within the same bank or between different banks for the same customer, and intra-bank transfers between customers of the same bank, savings and deposits including transactions involving long-term investments such as treasury bills and bonds.    

If the economy is doing well and the citizens are well remunerated, there wouldn’t have been much fuss about these levies. But ours has become an economy bedevilled by hyper-inflation, foreign exchange volatility, corruption, food insecurity, unemployment and high debt profile.

In Nigeria today, the level of income of many people does not equate to the level of expenditure. The NLC has been agitating for an increase in minimum wage. Government is dragging its feet over this demand, but it is quick to increase the tax burden on citizens without thinking about the consequences.

Peter Obi called it milking a dying economy. In his statement on the cybersecurity levy, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 election wondered when the office of the NSA became a revenue collecting centre. As he put it, “The introduction of yet another tax, in the form of cybersecurity levy, on Nigerians who are already suffering severe economic distress is further proof that the government is more interested in milking a dying economy instead of nurturing it to recovery and growth.”

From the look of things, Nigerians have not seen anything yet. We may wake up one day to contend with water and air levies. Though many Nigerians provide their own water through borehole or rain, and though air is freely given by God or mother nature, it won’t be surprising if government decides that we should begin to pay for them. This is irrespective of the fact that Section 14(2)(b) of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution (as amended) states that the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government. 

We have entered what Lagosians call ‘one-chance’ – a vehicle where criminals lure passengers to enter and either rob them along the way or use them for rituals. This is equivalent to what this government is doing to her citizens.

We can only plead that the powers that be consider the plight of the masses in everything they do. Is it when all Nigerians drop dead that they will understand the harrowing experiences of many people? I attended a function recently where I saw a woman picking water bottles from the floor. The unsteady movement of the woman gave a hint of somebody who was seriously disturbed. My wife called her and gave her a bottle of malt. She grabbed it, gulped it down, exhaled deeply and said, “This is the first thing that would enter my stomach since yesterday.”

It is a pity that many of our politicians don’t appreciate the enormity of the problems people are going through these days. Many are sick but don’t have the money to buy drugs not to talk of going to the hospital. Many children roam the streets, not because they don’t want to be in school, but because their parents cannot pay their school fees. Many others stand by the roadside to beg for money, not that they are not ashamed to beg, but because they are handicapped.

A number of companies have shut down due to harsh operating environment. Some of those that are still operating are posting losses. Among those that have posted losses in recent times are the Nigerian Breweries, MTN Nigeria, Dangote Cement, BUA Foods, Nestle, Cadbury, Lafarge Africa, International Breweries and so on. The foreign exchange (forex) losses of many of these companies in the financial year 2023 run into trillions of naira. MTN, for instance, reportedly had a combined forex loss of about N740.7 billion. These losses were mainly due to the devaluation of the naira.

Just the other day, Microsoft announced that it was shutting down its Africa Development Centre in Lagos. The centre was opened in 2022. This will lead to job losses as well. But, Temitope Ajayi, the Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to President Bola Tinubu, denied this report. According to him, Microsoft is only re-aligning roles within the business, and a few roles will certainly be impacted. Talk of semantics!

Government should devise some other means of generating revenue. Paying taxes is not a bad idea. It is done all over the world. But the poor should not be overtaxed to raise money for the government. What such people need is a lifeline or social security to cushion the effects of poverty on them.

The worst is that people have not seen the dividends of the revenue accruing from these taxes. Forget the Lagos-Calabar coastal highway! The initiators of the over N15 trillion project knew why they brought it up this time. Selfish interests cannot be ruled out. President Bola Tinubu’s son, Seyi, is said to be a shareholder in Hitech, the company handling the project. Besides, the company is said to belong to Gilbert Chagoury, a well-known friend of the President. There are many abandoned projects the government should have faced and completed. But, of course, these ones will not bring good returns like a new project. And so, they plunged into it despite the fact that the country lacks the resources to embark on such a gigantic project now.

What Nigeria needs more now is transparent and accountable leadership. The country is sinking. There is insecurity everywhere. Poverty, hunger and hardship have caged many people. What a good government should be thinking now is how to extricate citizens from the stranglehold of these existential problems. Any government that cannot do this is not worth being called one. At least, it should not add to the burden if it cannot solve the existing problems.

*Igbokwe is a commentator on public issues