Inside the FIRS–France Tax Deal and Nigeria’s Trust Deficit
By Wale Alonge
President Bola Tinubu’s administration is pursuing the most ambitious macroeconomic reform agenda Nigeria has seen since the return to democracy. Fuel subsidy removal, exchange-rate liberalisation, tax reform, and renewed conversations around state police and fiscal federalism have pushed long-avoided issues into the centre of governance.
But while the reforms may be economically sound, the administration is struggling with a more elusive challenge: public trust. Nowhere is this tension clearer than in the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Nigeria’s Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and France’s Direction générale des Finances publiques (DGFiP)—a technical agreement that has ignited political anxiety and public suspicion far beyond its actual scope.
At its core, the controversy reflects a familiar Nigerian paradox: reform momentum without narrative control.
A Country Conditioned to Distrust Power
Nigeria’s democratic history has left citizens deeply sceptical of the state. Decades of corruption, policy reversals, and unfulfilled promises have eroded confidence in public institutions. The optimism of independence collapsed with the First Republic, while the democratic experiment many fought to restore has delivered uneven dividends.
The depth of this disillusionment is stark. In recent years, some Nigerians have openly expressed nostalgia for military rule—mistaking authoritarian decisiveness for competence. It is within this environment of collective trauma and suspicion that all reforms, however rational, are judged.
Bold Reform, Weak Storytelling
President Tinubu has shown rare political courage. Fuel subsidy removal—long regarded as a political third rail—was implemented within weeks of his inauguration. The naira was floated, local government autonomy was judicially affirmed, and tax reform legislation survived fierce resistance, particularly from northern political blocs.
Yet these reforms have largely been rolled out without sufficient public preparation. Nigerians often encounter the pain of reform before understanding its purpose or trajectory. In the absence of a coherent communication strategy, opposition voices and conspiracy theories have filled the vacuum.
Governance, however, is not just about policy execution; it is also about persuasion. On that front, the administration has struggled.
Confidence as a Double-Edged Sword
Tinubu’s political persona, defined by supreme confidence, has long been an asset. From the now-famous “Emilokan” declaration to his audacious inauguration speech, he has projected certainty in a system often paralysed by caution.
At his inauguration, he warned Nigerians not to pity him, declaring that he knew exactly what he was signing up for. He even invited voters not to re-elect him if he failed to deliver constant power within his first term—a daring pledge in a country where power sector reform has humbled generations of leaders.
But in government, that same confidence risks turning into strategic blind spots. Rolling out reform after reform without managing public psychology underestimates the emotional toll on a population already battered by inflation, currency shocks, and rising insecurity.
With the removal of aggressive informal defenders from the media battlefield and the approach of the 2027 election cycle, information warfare, not policy design, may prove decisive.
The FIRS–France MOU: A Case of Bad Timing
Nigeria’s governance culture is historically Anglo-centric. English is the official language, British administrative models dominate public institutions, and the United Kingdom hosts the largest Nigerian diaspora.
Against this backdrop, Nigeria’s growing engagement with France has unsettled sections of the elite—particularly at a time when France is grappling with domestic unrest, declining geopolitical influence in Africa, and the erosion of its former Francophone alliances.
When news emerged of an MOU between FIRS and France’s DGFiP to support Nigeria’s new tax architecture, alarm bells rang. Tax reform is arguably the most sensitive economic overhaul of the Tinubu presidency, touching directly on citizen income, business survival, and state legitimacy.
Even if the partnership is technically sound, the manner of its disclosure proved politically clumsy.
Why France—and Why the Fear?
Nigeria undeniably faces capacity gaps. Building a modern, digitally integrated national tax system requires secure IT infrastructure, advanced data analytics, and robust cross-border data governance—areas where Nigeria still lags.
France’s DGFiP is administratively formidable, employing roughly 94,000 staff and operating an integrated tax–treasury–accounting system. From a purely technical standpoint, cooperation makes sense.
However, France’s tax system is often criticised for its low international competitiveness, even if its collection capacity is strong. More importantly, partnering with a foreign sovereign tax authority, rather than a neutral multilateral institution or private technical vendor, raises unavoidable concerns in a low-trust environment.
The Embedded Risks
Analysts identify several risks inherent in the MOU:
- Data sovereignty exposure: Taxpayer data processed or hosted abroad could fall under foreign legal jurisdictions.
- Institutional dependency: Prolonged reliance on foreign systems may weaken Nigeria’s long-term autonomy.
- Cybersecurity vulnerabilities: Cross-border data flows expand the attack surface for breaches.
- Contextual mismatch: French administrative tools may not align with Nigeria’s legal structure or vast informal economy.
- Public trust backlash: The perception of foreign involvement in Nigeria’s tax system threatens legitimacy and voluntary compliance—the most dangerous risk of all.
How Government Can Salvage the Reform
None of these risks are insurmountable. But managing them requires deliberate political strategy, not technical assurances alone.
Policy experts argue the government should urgently:
- Ring-fence data sovereignty by publicly guaranteeing that all taxpayer data will be hosted and controlled exclusively within Nigeria.
- Define scope and exit clearly, limiting the MOU to time-bound technical assistance with explicit knowledge-transfer clauses.
- Institutionalise transparency by publishing the full MOU, safeguards, and oversight mechanisms.
- Build local capacity in parallel, investing heavily in Nigerian IT, data science, and cybersecurity talent.
- Reclaim the narrative through a coordinated communication strategy explaining why tax reform is necessary and how citizens are protected.
- Leverage the Nigerian diaspora, recruiting global Nigerian experts in tax architecture to domesticate and supervise the partnership.
Reform Needs Trust to Succeed
The FIRS–France MOU may ultimately prove defensible on technical grounds. But in Nigeria’s current climate, technical logic divorced from political psychology is a recipe for backlash.
President Tinubu may be winning the macroeconomic reform battle. Without intentional trust-building and narrative control, however, he risks losing the street, and with it, the political war that determines whether reform survives beyond the spreadsheet.
