 It is my special pleasure to be here with you at this 20th annual conference of the Chartered Institute of Taxation. Indeed, the theme is a very apt one, is educationalizing a culture of taxpaying in the 20th century. It is apt because this is a time where we are in search of solutions to widening our tax base. Just in which case, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, otherwise known as Awol, died this day, May 1987, about 31 years ago. He was Premier of the Western Region of Nigeria from 1954 to 1960. The Western Region is what today constitutes Oyao, Okun, Doa, Aikiti, Oshun, Patsokwara, Kogi, Doa and Delta, Lagos as far as Jibu. The six-year period of the Awolowo government is often cited as one of the most progressive of any government in the developing world. Some of the major accomplishments of that government include the University Office and now Obafemi Awolowo University. The 26th story Kokohaus, Ipado, an architectural wonder at the time. WMTV, the first of its kind in Africa, the first television station in Africa. The Kejia Industrial Estate, several farm settlements, the airport hotel, several industrial establishments, Odoa, Odoa Textiles, Agri-Kiti, Okiti Pupua, all-pound mills, Oluwa Glass, Ipan Ceramics, Ireikiti, brick industry and a network of roads across the region. But by far the most significant of these achievements is the Free Universal Primary Education. In 1952, when the scheme was proposed, 381,000 children, about 30% of the children then, were enrolled in school. By 1955, when the scheme took off, 811,000 children were enrolled and the numbers continued to grow. The government devoted as much as 41.2% of its 1958-1959, the current budgets to education, one of the highest in the world at the time. The western region of Nigeria at that time was educating more children than anywhere in Africa. At the same time, the region nurtured a vibrant civil service and a judicial system widely acknowledged as a model even today. So how were our phenomenal achievements possible? There was no oil revenue, no federal revenue. In fact, the western region as well as all the other regions had to give revenue to the central government. So after making their own money, they handed the rest to the federal government. The federal government gave nothing, or the central government, not the federal government, the central government gave nothing. How did they do it? Mostly taxes and revenues from agriculture and the western region, especially cocoa. Free education, which was auditiously launched by the Awo government, was directly on the back of income taxes. A capitation or poll tax was imposed by the western regional government, mainly to fund free education, despite much opposition and protests at the time. So whatever achievements were recorded by that region, and I cite that region only as one, the other regions were also making progress. Whatever they managed to achieve was largely on the back of taxation. But with military rule from 1966 and all money, everyone forgot about taxes. The federal government gave everyone an allocation. So today the states in the old western region, aside from Lagos, do not even earn enough in taxes or anything else to pay salaries, let alone do any major capital projects. Without federal allocation, most states cannot survive. I'm sure you're familiar with the statistic that Lagos State alone takes in as much IGR as 31 states combined. It tells you how little the other states managed to bring in IGR. The historical analogy of the old western region and the fate of the states that now constitute it explains the low level of tax compliance. The now well-known fact that our tax-to-GDP ratio stands at only 6%, although we're told that that is likely to improve with vex and some of the steps taken already by the FRS are many of the states. But this is obviously a dismal figure when compared to other countries at similar levels of development. Ghana, Egypt and India at about 16%, South Africa at about 29%. That our tax-to-GDP ratio is one of the lowest in the world would in fact really surprise no one. As of May 2017, of the roughly 70 million Nigerians who are economically active, only 14 million or 20% paid any federal or state taxes at all. The number of Nigerians who pay more than 10 million Naira in self-assessed taxes is even more astonishing. As of December 2017, only 943, that is 943, not 8000, not up to 1000, 943 Nigerians pay self-assessed taxes of over 10 million Naira. Of that number, 941 live in Lagos state. The other two live in Ogun state. I think you ought to look at the gentleman sitting next to you, that millionaire sitting next to you and ask have you money to pay taxes, self-assessed taxes. Admittedly, tax is not an issue that excites citizens anywhere in the world, anywhere around the world. It's a favorite of those who love the chicken and egg argument, which should comforts paying taxes or enjoying the dividends of good governance. In reality, we shouldn't have to debate this at all. Tax compliance and good governance should exist side by side as the head and tail of the social contract that binds or should bind citizens and governments anywhere in the world. It's of course not hard to explain the cynicism that Nigerians display about governments and about fulfilling their tax responsibilities. Governments generally up in nonchalant about fulfilling their own part of the social contract. But it's also a fact that when people pay taxes, they are more inclined to hold their governments to account. It's now almost 300 years since, and I quote, no taxation without representation, became the rallying cry for the American colonists and one of the main triggers of the revolution that earned 13 American colonists at the time, their independence from Great Britain. Closer home, we've had the Abba and the Apeguta tax reports, is definitely both championed by women. The moral is a simple one, that when citizens pay their full share of taxes, they take more than a passing interest in how they are governed and how public funds are utilized and accounted for. However, the story seems to have changed and we mentioned this as we began to rely more and more on oil revenues and less on taxation. This period of course also coincided with military rule and took away from the people their choice of leaders. With increasing oil wealth, governments soon lost the will to tax and the decline of taxation also signaled a decline in government's accountability and ability to deal with the needs of the people. For too long, Nigeria has carried on essentially as an all rich country, one without need for its citizens' taxes. The unwritten compact has been something along the lines of, pay whatever taxes you can, but it's really no big deal. In exchange, we as government get the right to do whatever we like in Nigeria's oil wealth. This arrangement has of course fueled the massive corruption and the inefficiencies that have come to be associated with public revenue management. The point here is this, that a taxpayer is less tolerant of corruption than a citizen who does not pay tax. Because most of what the government spends is from oil and the taxes are very few. Many citizens simply see government money as belonging to no one. So you sometimes hear people even openly supporting persons of their ethnic group or persons who share the same faith with them who steal government funds. Whereas they will not tolerate the same persons stealing from their town union funds or any society to which they belong. The simple reason is that they are active contributors to whatever society they belong and they will not tolerate anyone stealing their money. I think that the government of President Buhari is working to change the state of affairs. We are determined to restore the full weight of the social contract between the citizens and the government. Where we are writing the old rules and the compacts, making it clear to Nigerians that we will ensure that every Naira of public money is put to use for the maximum good of the Nigerian people. While simultaneously ensuring that every Naira due to public coffers in taxes is promptly and efficiently collected. We've aggressively expanded the implementation of the Treasury single account, the TSA, and the integrated personal payroll information system IPIS. Both designed to ensure that public funds are transparently managed and spent. In the process we've succeeded in proving that process reforms are only as good and as effective as the implementation. The TSA's unified system of bank accounts, domiciled in the central bank, has proven to be far more transparent and cost effective than the old scenario in which government agencies maintain thousands of accounts across various commercial banks. Because of the TSA, the federal government realizes monthly savings of at least four billion Naira, which would have gone on commercial bank charges alone. The presidential initiative on continuous audit PICA has also tightened controls on the federal payroll and pension systems, eliminating tens of thousands of ghost workers and saving us more than 200 billion Naira that would have gone to these ghost workers. The level of commitment to accountability makes it easy to see how we've managed to, even in the face of dwindling earnings and a recession, succeeded in significantly spending more on infrastructure, roads, rail and power and human capital development, education, health, poverty, reduction, etc. than any previous government so far. Along these public financing reforms that have highlighted, we're also keenly aware that our tax system requires review to make it easier for citizens to fulfill their own end of the social contract. That is why in February 2016, the Federal Executive Council adopted the national tax policy and the establishment of an implementation committee for the policy. The specific mandate of the committee included the removal of obsolete, ambiguous and contradictory provisions in our tax laws, simplification of the tax payment process and the reduction of the tax burden on micro, small and medium enterprises. It is pleasing to note that the committee's work has since produced five amendment bills and two executive orders, all of which will shortly be presented to the Federal Executive Council for approval. Last year, we launched the Voluntary Assets and Incomes Declaration scheme, VIGS. VIGS has opened up a 12 month Amnesty window, which allows Nigerians at home and abroad to regularize their tax status by declaring and paying all taxes previously undeclared over incomes and assets and all that, without the fear of investigation or prosecution. One of the VIGS goals is to raise Nigeria's tax GDP from the current 6% to 15% by 2020. I'm sure that as tax professionals, VIGS has brought increased activity to your various offices. I implore you to keep in mind that one, that extra income is taxable and two, that to whom much is given, much is expected. When VIGS comes to a close on June 30th, 2018, the tax authorities have made it clear that they will aggressively go after all tax defaulters and invaders, and we sure will require the active participation of all of you tax administrators and tax professionals present here. In terms of tax administration, we are seeing new levels of cooperation between the federal and state authorities. VIGS is a very good example of this, based on the realization that cooperation will bring more benefit than competition. On the international level, we've signed a number of international tax administration agreements that will make it harder for Nigerians to evade taxes by hiding their assets abroad. We're also working on how to adapt our tax laws to the digital age, one in which commerce has become borderless and intangible, and to which the old laws no longer really apply. E-filing is a rapidly growing concept which we are very keen to extend to taxpayers at all levels across the country. We're also taking seriously measures to curtail tax evasion by multinational companies. I know that this is one of those issues that the Minister of Finance in particular is very passionate about. We must not hold the ordinary citizen to account for tax payments, while allowing the powerful multinationalists to capitalise on their size and smarts to slip away without scrutiny. We're also determined to ensure that no one is left at the mercy of unfair tax regimes. To this end, we've extended the reach of our double taxation avoidance agreements. There's no doubt that much has been achieved by the unprecedented push to rewrite the tax narrative in Nigeria, to ensure that everyone – citizens, businesses, investors, tax professionals, governments – all derive maximum benefit from the system. Earlier, I noted that as of May 2017, only 14 million economically active Nigerians paid taxes. I'm pleased to note that the number is now in excess of 19 million and still growing. And this means that the efforts led by the Federal Inland Revenue Service, in collaboration with many of the state's Inland Revenue Services, have already added more than 5 million new taxpayers to the tax base. But there's still a lot of work ahead of us. As Nigeria raises to catch up with the rest of the world in terms of tax compliance, we all have a role to play in this. And I hope that your conversations over the next few days will challenge you, as tax experts and professionals from across government, academia and the private sector, to do even more. Commit me to say, though, that perhaps the equivalent of the invention of electricity for tax administration is inventing the solution to effectively collecting taxes from our huge informal economies. The easy argument would be that we should wait until economic growth and development brings them into the formal systems. But this is not helpful. It has kept us on the same spot for decades. It seems to me that we must find a way of fixing this car while the engine is running. I would urge that this conference consider some solutions to this problem, along with so many huge issues that will occupy your time and attention in the next couple of days. So I'll thank you for your attention. It is now my special privilege to declare this 20th conference. Thank you.