Adeleke Solomon
Executive Chairman of Kwara State Internal Revenue Service (KWIRS), Dr. Murtala Awodun, has urged Nigerians to hold governments accountable on how revenues accrued from taxes through Internally Generated Revenues (IGRs) are spent.
Dr. Awodun said this has become imperative now that IGRs are becoming the last resort of government revenues in Nigeria, following the fall in crude oil revenues.
He explained that citizens have to be awakened to their civic duties.
Awodun stated this during the KWIRS’s workshop with the residents of Kwara State on ”PAYE Operation and other Statutory Deductions Dur to State Government, which was held at the Kwara Hotels, in Ilorin.
The tax chief stressed that taxpayers have to ask questions from governments to avoid what befell oil wealth which he alleged was looted by the successive military administrations in Nigeria.
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He observed that this explained why majority of Nigerians did not benefit much from oil wealth, charging them to be vigilant on how government is run to forestall similar fate befalling wealth from taxes.
He noted that Nigeria jettisoned its old tax culture in the 1970s when oil was discovered.
He alleged further that governments of those periods ruled the nation with little regard for the citizens because large chunks of money that the government relied on did not come from the citizens’ pockets.
”But with the new tax regime which recently came on board as a result of decline in the oil revenues, citizens’ civic duty has been reawakened.
“The concept of tax which makes government a social contract brightens the prospect of participatory democracy. Citizens can now hold government accountable”, he says.
Dr. Awodun disclosed that taxpayers in Kwara State have positively responded to their civic duties which he said has been instrumental to KWIRS generating N17.4 billion in 2016, N19.6 billion in 2017 and N16.12 billion within nine months of 2018.