Sir: A news report on the front page of The Nigerian Observer of Tuesday, May 4, 2021 came with a caption, ‘‘Edo deploys big data in tax administration as monthly IGR climbs to N2.8 billion.’’ The rider of that caption also said that IGR in Edo ‘‘ranks second behind Lagos in number of taxpayers with TIN.’’ Details of the report on page 2 of The Nigerian Observer indicated that the assertion was made by a government official, Nidu Inneh, chairman of the Edo State Internal Revenue Service, in a paper titled, Taxation, Rule of Law, and Voluntary Compliance – Role of the Nigeria bar Association at a programme organised by the Nigerian Bar Association in Benin City. According to the report, Inneh said that ‘‘our individual data capture has grown from 160,000 in 2017 to 515,453 as at May 2021. Edo ranks second behind Lagos in total number of taxpayers with TIN.’’
A few days before this publication, another statement was ascribed to Edo State Governor…
Source: Guardian Newspaper
