A State cannot threaten lawful businesses with penalties for missing tax deadlines while looking away from troubling questions around the legality of those appointed to supervise the same tax system. That contradiction is not administrative; it is moral, legal and deeply political. It strikes at the very heart of trust, and trust is the first currency any serious tax reform must collect before it ever touches a kobo.
The recent extension of the tax filing deadline in Lagos should ordinarily have been a straightforward governance story. More time was given to workers, freelancers, business owners and professionals to do the right thing, declare their income and avoid sanctions. It was the familiar language of state authority reminding citizens that records matter, obligations exist, and default has consequences. Yet hidden beneath that routine administrative gesture is a far deeper national concern: the uneasy contradiction of asking legitimate businesses and honest taxpayers to submit themselves to a system whose own leadership appointments may not have submitted to the same discipline of law.
Does Lagos State have the powers to amend a federal law as it has done with the tax law? Not possible at all, no State can amend a national law, at best States domesticate federal laws. States are legally allowed to make laws, but anywhere the law comes head to head with the federal law, the federal law takes charge.
This is why the controversy around the appointment of Executive Directors in the National Revenue Service goes beyond politics and enters the far more serious territory of institutional legitimacy.
By the provisions of the Law, that the appointtees in each zone should be by alphabetical order of States in the zone, only the South-South got it right in appointing someone from Akwa Ibom, the rest of the geopolitical zones flouted it.
North-East’s position should have gone to Adamawa State rather than Borno State, while Benue State should represent the North-Central instead of Niger State, Jigawa State should represent the North-West not Kano State, Abia State instead of Imo State for the South-East, and Ekiti State rather than Lagos State for the South-West.
If these illegal appointments are not corrected, they would leave dangerous precedents that would compromise the future of NRS.
Tax administration is not merely about raising revenue. It is about moral authority. People comply more willingly when they trust both the process and the people behind it. The moment those entrusted with enforcing the law arrive in office through means that raise legitimate questions of legality, process or fairness, every demand they make on businesses begins to lose force. The issue is no longer only whether the law says taxpayers must file. The issue becomes whether those overseeing the filings carry the kind of legitimacy that inspires respect rather than resentment.
For the NRS, this is an especially dangerous place to be. A revenue institution survives on trust as much as it survives on statutes. Once there is a perception that those at the top are beneficiaries of ill-advised or questionable appointments, the institution inherits a credibility crisis that no digital portal, enforcement mechanism or compliance drive can solve. Every notice sent to a company, every audit request, every threat of penalty and every compliance warning will now be read against a larger national question: is this a system built on law, or one asking others to respect rules it did not respect in constituting itself?
That is the legal and moral burden now resting on the NRS. The legal burden is obvious. If the appointments violate either the spirit or the letter of the new tax law, they expose the institution to distrust, challenge and long-term reputational damage. But the moral burden may be even heavier. It sends a message that in Nigeria there are still two standards: one for citizens and businesses who must obey deadlines, documentation rules and payment schedules, and another for those close enough to power to arrive in sensitive offices through questionable pathways. Once that message settles into public consciousness, compliance becomes harder, cynicism deepens, and the tax culture the reformers hope to build begins to decay from the top.
This is where the burden on the framers of the new fiscal order becomes impossible to separate from the conversation. Anyone who helped shape the architecture of this tax regime and now sits at the centre of national finance policy carries more than a technical responsibility. There is a legacy question here. A reform is judged not only by the brilliance of its ideas but by the integrity of its implementation. If the institutions birthed by the new law begin their journey under the shadow of controversial appointments, then the architects of that law must confront the contradiction directly. Silence in such a moment can easily be interpreted as consent, and consent in matters of institutional legitimacy can damage even the noblest policy vision.
There is something profoundly troubling about a state threatening penalties for failure to file returns while appearing relaxed about failures of due process in the appointment of those who supervise the same returns. It creates the impression that procedure is sacred only when it applies to ordinary citizens and private businesses. Yet the rule of law loses meaning the moment it stops being symmetrical. Government cannot demand precision from taxpayers while excusing carelessness in the very structure of tax authority.
For legitimate businesses, this contradiction is not abstract. It affects confidence, planning and the willingness to engage openly with the tax system. Businesses want certainty. They want to know that those making decisions about assessments, liabilities and enforcement are there on the strength of law and competence, not political convenience. The moment doubt enters that space, every tax interaction becomes layered with suspicion. Instead of building a culture of voluntary compliance, the system begins to breed defensive compliance, grudging compliance and, in some cases, outright resistance.
That is why this moment is bigger than who gets appointed. It is about whether the new fiscal regime wants to stand on trust or intimidation. A nation cannot preach legitimacy downward while practising ambiguity upward. If the new tax order must command respect, then the institutions at its heart must first embody the same discipline they demand from the people.
If this reform must endure, it cannot begin with the old Nigerian habit of asking citizens for discipline while rewarding power with exceptions. The law must first cleanse the hands that enforce it, because no nation builds lasting compliance on the foundation of institutional hypocrisy.
Shaakaa can be reached on: shaakaastephanie@yahoo.com
