Full speed ahead!

FG wants to implement forged tax laws, we keep negotiating with terrorists, House of Reps are okay with vote-buying, and you won’t be able to afford a car next year.

Dec 26, 2025

Good morning, Big Brains. Happy… day after? If the day before a holiday is the “eve”, what on earth do you call the day after? I spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to find the answer to that yesterday and came up with absolutely nothing. If you actually know the word for it, please educate me. Anyway, the Nigerian government does not go on holiday when it comes to stressing Nigerians, so let’s get straight into it.

This Week’s Big Question: “Should the new tax laws be suspended?” Share your responses with us, and if we think they’re fun enough, we’ll feature them in the newsletter :) So be on the lookout.

-Franklyn

Word count: ~ 2100

Reading time ~ 10 mins

In the madhouse that is Nigeria, many things go down within the week, and it can be difficult to grasp them all. This limited edition of The Big Daily newsletter cuts through the noise and sifts through the debris to bring you the four biggest news stories that shaped the week.

Let’s get into this week’s Big-4:

FG wants to go ahead with the Tax Reform laws anyway
There is some confusion about the released victims of the Niger Catholic School kidnapping
The House of Representatives thinks vote-buying is okay
You won’t be able to afford a car next year

FG wants to go ahead with the Tax Reform laws anyway

What do you do when you realise you might have taken a wrong turn? Do you stop for a minute, check a map, get your bearings, and steer towards the right path? Or do you keep going full speed ahead and hope that it will all make sense in the end?

There is only one obvious answer to this question if you’re the Tinubu administration, and the destination is revenue generation.

Last week, we told you someone was trying to play a fast one with the new tax laws, which are supposed to take effect from next week on January 1, 2026. A member of the House of Representatives, Abdussamad Dasuki, said he compared the copy of the laws the National Assembly passed with the official final version released to the public and found clear differences between the two.

This is a very serious allegation because it would be completely illegal if someone deliberately altered the laws after the National Assembly passed them.

So far, all we have gotten from every government body is denial after denial. Last week, both the Office of the Clerk to the National Assembly and the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) denied tampering with the laws.

Oyedele denies changing the laws, too, claiming the official copy—which suddenly gives tax authorities more powers than the National Assembly ever authorised—was simply what was given to him by the Ministry of Justice.

It seems everyone is kicking the blame down the road. This is exactly why a proper investigation is necessary, and we hope the probe into this issue is transparent and thorough. But we cannot expect the probe to be finished any time soon. So an important question arises: should the law be suspended while the investigation runs?

Many people think so. Opposition leaders like Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, along with several civil society organisations, have called for the laws to be put on hold. The Take-It-Back Movement says it is even mobilising Nigerians nationwide against the tax reforms.

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) have also spoken out against starting the new system yet.

But it seems the presidency is not listening. Presidential spokesperson, Bayo Onanuga, said the presidency would not talk about the issue until the probe concludes, but insisted the January 1, 2026, timeline remains and “there is no point” in demanding a suspension.

Taiwo Oyedele has spent the week defending the laws and arguing in favour of starting on schedule. According to him, delaying the law will lead to bad outcomes like the VAT charges from the old laws continuing to make things like food, healthcare, and education expensive.

Either Oyedele does not grasp how serious this is, or he is deliberately downplaying it. No matter how noble the goals of the tax reform are, they do not change the fact that someone appears to have rewritten laws passed by the National Assembly. That is a direct attack on our constitution and democracy. It cannot simply be swept under the rug, so a law can be implemented because it removes VAT charges.

Experts say the enforceable version of a law is the gazetted version. And if that version has been changed from what NASS passed, then it is an illegal document. How can we implement an illegal set of laws?

Pausing the implementation until the issue is resolved is both logical and right. But it seems the presidency is determined not to see this. We are not surprised. The Tinubu administration never lets anything get in the way of revenue generation—not even a brazen attack on our democracy. It is honestly exhausting.

There is some confusion about the released victims of the Niger Catholic School kidnapping

Nigeria is the sort of place where even the “happy endings” only serve to show you how broken everything else is.

On November 21, 2025, gunmen raided St Mary’s Catholic School in the Papiri community of Niger State, kidnapping hundreds of students and staff. Over the following month, the victims were released in batches.

Within the first two days, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) announced that 50 students had managed to escape on their own and reunite with their families.

On December 8, the federal government announced it had secured the release of 100 more hostages. Finally, on December 19, officials claimed they had received the final 130 people and that no more hostages remained.

However, the numbers do not quite add up. While the government insists that only 280 people were taken and all have been rescued, the school originally reported 315 victims (303 students and 12 teachers).

Daniel Atori, the media aide to the school’s proprietor, said on December 23, that the school still needs to conduct a thorough verification before it can agree with the government’s report.

Atori admitted that the initial chaos and panic in the community made it hard to get exact figures at the start. He noted, “We categorised those we could not immediately account for as missing because we are dealing with lives and cannot afford to make assumptions.”

So, while the government has been quick to declare victory, it is still unclear if these 130 people are actually the last of the hostages. Even if they are, the victory feels hollow. The first 50 children saved themselves by escaping, while the release of the other 230 was secured through “negotiations“ between the government and the kidnappers.

While celebrating the latest release, Ogun State Governor Dapo Abiodun said that security agencies deserve praise for the outcome. We are not entirely sure when we started praising security operatives for their negotiation skills rather than their ability to stop kidnappings, but it seems that is where we are now.

Terrorists and kidnappers can attack schools, churches, farms, and homes without fearing any real heat from the law. They just have to wait patiently for the government to call them to the negotiating table. It is a mess.

The entire situation is so messy that kidnapping is now a billion-naira industry in Nigeria. Between July 2024 and July 2025, a staggering ₦2.56 billion was paid in ransoms. Whether it is private families paying ransoms or the government doing the talking, these negotiations only embolden criminals to keep going.

The students and teachers of St Mary’s might be home for Christmas, but how long will it be before these same kidnappers strike somewhere else, and we are forced to watch this tragic cycle repeat itself?

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If you strip it down to its most basic essence, an election is a popularity contest. Ideally, people vote for ideas, and the most popular idea wins. Sometimes, people vote for a candidate because of their personality rather than their policies. While that is not exactly ideal, it is still a democratic right. Then there is a third option: people vote for whoever pays them the most money.

In any sane democratic society, everyone would agree that this third option is a crime. But we have to ask: Is Nigeria a sane country?

On Thursday, December 18, 2025, the House of Representatives passed the Electoral Act (Amendment) Bill. One of the key provisions was a clause that finally criminalised buying the votes of delegates during party primaries, carrying a two-year prison sentence.

However, when the House voted on the bill clause by clause, a large majority of representatives rejected that particular amendment.

Adebayo Balogun, the chairman of the House Committee on Electoral Matters, claimed the bill was meant to fix “emerging electoral challenges.” This makes the rejection even more shocking, as vote-buying is arguably the biggest challenge to Nigerian democracy today.

The numbers tell a depressing story. The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported that vote-buying spiked in 2023 compared to previous years. The Kimpact Development Initiative (KDI) estimated that over ₦2 billion was spent on buying votes during the Edo and Ondo governorship elections in 2024.

Even more recently, in November 2025, political parties were reportedly buying votes for as low as ₦1,000 during the Anambra governorship election.

The problem starts at the very beginning. Before candidates ever hand out cash at polling stations, they do it at the party primaries.

During the PDP presidential primaries in 2023, candidates reportedly paid delegates between $10,000 and $20,000 for a single vote. The process is so shameless that one delegate from Kaduna, Tanko Sabo, openly talked about his payday at the primaries.

Democracy cannot survive on this kind of short-sighted, survivalist mindset. The people who buy votes are exactly the type of individuals who should be nowhere near the levers of power. By refusing to criminalise this, the House of Representatives is basically protecting a broken system.

The backlash has been strong, and we agree with the critics. Party primaries are the foundation of the entire electoral process. If that foundation is built on corruption, the entire house will keep crashing down every single election cycle.

You won’t be able to afford a car next year

Nigerians have so much to look forward to in 2026, and we mean that in the worst possible way. The federal government has just announced one more thing to complicate our lives next year.

According to Joseph Osanipin, the Director General of the National Automotive Design and Development Council (NADDC), the government will fully implement the End-of-Life Vehicle (ELV) policy starting from the second quarter of 2026.

The government claims this policy will reduce the number of unsafe and dangerous cars on our roads, and it includes new measures to restrict the importation of used vehicles.

Under the new rules, used cars will require a special “pre-export certification” from the Nigerian government before they even begin the journey here. Osanipin claims the cost of this certification will be paid by the exporters, not Nigerian buyers. But you would have to be someone with absolutely no understanding of how business works to believe that these costs will not be passed straight down to the final buyer.

As if that is not enough, car buyers will also have to pay a mandatory recycling fee when purchasing or registering a vehicle. This fee is supposedly meant to ensure that old cars are disposed of responsibly instead of being abandoned on the roadside. The NADDC is already projecting annual revenues of over ₦150 billion from this fee alone.

Add this to the fact that 2026 will likely see the return of the 4% cent Free-on-Board (FOB) levy. Car dealers are warning that the levy could triple the cost of clearing a single vehicle. If these costs hit the market as expected, many Nigerians are about to be priced out of car ownership entirely.

What this government does not seem to grasp is that Nigeria is a poor country. Nigerians do not buy “tokunbo” cars because we have a personal grudge against new vehicles; we buy them because they are all we can afford. Some people even specifically look for accidented used vehicles because they are cheaper. That is our reality.

Slapping all these extra fees onto car ownership will only make it impossible for most Nigerians to own a vehicle. If the government actually understands this and is doing it anyway, then we have to ask: why is this administration so determined to make life difficult for Nigerians?

Your next big read

→Wrapped: Top 10 Policies That Stressed Nigerians In 2025: If the Nigerian government isn’t frustrating Nigerians one way, they’re disappointing them in another. 2025 has seen so many policies that have us suspecting the federal government actually doesn’t like Nigerians. Here are ten of the worst policies Tinubu gifted us this year.

→Kidnapping Is The New Norm In Tinubu’s Nigeria: The scary and unfortunate reality of life in Nigeria right now is that kidnapping is big business. It’s become a billion-naira industry, and under Tinubu, the business has boomed a great deal. But it’s Nigerians who are paying the price of the seeming normalisation of kidnapping.

The Big Picks

NIN, CAC Numbers To Become Tax IDs From 2026— FIRS: The National Identification Number issued by the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has now automatically become a Tax ID for Nigerians starting from January 2026, according to the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS).

Many Feared Dead As Bomb Blast Rocks Maiduguri Mosque: Suspected Boko Haram insurgents have detonated an improvised explosive device (IED) at a Juma’at Mosque in Gamboru Ward, around the Customs area in the heart of Maiduguri, the Borno State capital.

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