AAC Accuses Tinubu Of Legalising Poverty Through ‘Altered Tax Laws’
The African Action Congress (AAC) has launched a scathing critique of the President Bola Tinubu administration, condemning recent alterations to Nigeria’s tax laws as a “legalised punishment of the poor to enrich the powerful.” In a press statement released on Sunday by National Publicity Secretary Rex I. Elanu, the opposition party accused the government of intensifying “economic violence” against a population already struggling with deep poverty and insecurity. The AAC argues that these changes are not genuine modernizations but are instead a deliberate effort to extract revenue from suffering citizens while shielding the political elite from the country’s economic realities.
The party maintains that the current tax system is fundamentally unjust, noting that Nigerians are forced to pay into a system that fails to provide basic services. In a pointed assessment of the state of the nation, the AAC stated, “There is no security, citizens are kidnapped, murdered, and displaced daily. There is no welfare, millions survive without social protection in the face of rising unemployment and hunger.” They further highlighted the collapse of essential services, noting: “There is no infrastructure, roads are death traps, power supply is epileptic, healthcare and education are in ruins. Yet taxes are relentlessly collected, as if Nigerians are beneficiaries of a functional state.”
Central to the AAC’s opposition is the allegation that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) is attempting to shift the cost of systemic mismanagement onto the working class. The party contends that after plunging the country into unsustainable debt, the administration is now “altering tax laws not to make life easier for Nigerians, but to squeeze more blood from a suffering population, while protecting and enriching himself and the same oppressive ruling class that have looted this country dry.” This move is viewed by the party as an attempt to make market women, artisans, and small business owners pay for the “elite corruption, waste and mismanagement” that has defined recent governance.
Dismissing the government’s justification for the hikes, the AAC rejected the notion that increased levies on the poor could stimulate national growth. “AAC rejects the lie that higher taxes on a poor and struggling population will ‘develop’ Nigeria. You cannot tax people into prosperity when they have no jobs, no security, and no social safety nets,” the statement read. The party further asserted that “taxation without tangible benefits is nothing but organised extortion,” labeling the increase of taxes in a system lacking accountability as both “immoral and criminal.”
In response to these developments, the AAC is demanding an immediate suspension of all regressive tax measures and a pivot toward people-centred economic policies. They are calling for a focus on living wages, job creation, and infrastructure before any tax increases are considered, alongside a forensic audit of the nation’s rising debts. Vowing to mobilize citizens against these “anti-people policies,” the party reiterated that Nigeria’s primary hurdle is not a lack of tax revenue, but a profound crisis of leadership and systemic inequality
