The Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS), formerly known as the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), broke its record revenue collection performance, posting N28.3 trillion to surpass the set target of N25.2 trillion for the year 2025. This was disclosed on behalf of the NRS executive chairman, Zacch Adedeji, by the Executive Director, Government and Large Taxpayers Group, Ms Amina Ado Kurawa, at the opening of a two-day management retreat with the theme “Designed to Adapt, Built to Deliver” held at the Congress Hall, Transcorp Hilton Hotel in Abuja, on Tuesday.
Ms Ado, according to a statement signed by Dare Adekanmbi, Special Adviser (Media) to the NRS chairman, also revealed that the revenue collection target for the revenue administration agency for 2026 has been set at N40.71 trillion, 44 per cent higher than the target for 2025.
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Speaking earlier, the NRS executive chairperson charged the management and staff members of the agency to do away with old beliefs, noting that the credibility of Nigeria’s revenue architecture and confidence in the Nigerian economy rest on their hands.
Mr Adedeji said, “If we walk into the future with rigid beliefs, we will build walls where bridges are required. But if we lead with honesty, courage, and an open mind, we will build an institution worthy of this moment.
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“Recently, I reflected deeply on an article in the Harvard Business Review titled ‘The Hidden Beliefs That Hold Leaders Back.’ Its central argument is both simple and confronting: leaders rarely fail because they lack intelligence, experience, or strategy. More often, they fall short because of the invisible beliefs they carry about themselves, about others, and about what leadership should look like, beliefs that quietly shape decisions, behaviours, and outcomes.
“The Nigeria Revenue Service will not be defined by what we say in this room. It will be defined by who we become after we leave it.”
The Executive Director, while giving a breakdown of the 2025 collection figures and how the agency surpassed the last target by 12 per cent, said non-oil taxes accounted for N21.4 trillion of the collection, against N18 trillion projected.
Total oil tax collection, according to her, came to N6.8 trillion, representing 95 per cent of the N7.2 trillion target set for the sector. Both oil and non-oil tax revenue grew year on year by 19 per cent and 35 per cent, respectively.
“For the year 2025, oil tax revenue totalled N6.6trillion, representing a growth of 19 per cent over the N5.8 trillion realized during the corresponding period in 2024. Non-oil tax revenue for 2025 exceeded the 2024 total, reaching N21.5 trillion compared to N15.9 trillion for the same period in 2024—representing a growth of 35 per cent.
“This growth was driven by administrative enhancements, broadening of the Withholding system, digitalization efforts, improved tax compliance initiatives and stronger enforcement tactics introduced by NRS,” the statement said.
The statement added that the 44 per cent increase in the target for the agency was based on the expanded mandate of NRS to be a revenue system integrator for the country, including the collection of royalty hitherto the responsibility of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) and so on.
Earlier, the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr Wale Edun, who joined the event virtually, charged Nigerians to rely more on made-in-Nigeria products, saying this would reduce revenue losses.
“We talk about buying from West Africa or trading with Africa as a whole, but intra-Nigerian trade is critical. We all know what spending in Nigeria does for the economy; we know what it does for the revenue targets of NRS.
“The debt service that was paid by the developing countries in 2024 was 163 billion dollars, while the overseas development assistance that came in was 42 billion dollars. The foreign direct investment and the private sector funding that came in from abroad to developing countries were just 97 billion dollars.
“So, you can see that, as developing countries, the flow of funding. What we are giving out is more than we are getting through these various categories. Clearly, it is what we do for ourselves internally that is going to be important at this time,” he said.
He reiterated the government’s desire to deliver in the areas of fiscal reforms and revenue mobilisation, saluting the management and staff of NRS for not just the pivotal but indispensable role they play in domestic revenue mobilisation.
Also speaking, the chairman of the National Tax Policy Implementation Committee, Joseph Tegbe, stressed the need for clinical delivery and execution of the tax laws.
Mr Tegbe said that the quality of execution would ultimately determine whether the reform would succeed or merely join a long list of well-intentioned initiatives that failed to transform outcomes. He explained that the country’s continued dependence on what he described as volatile oil revenues exposes it to shocks beyond control, “while rising public expenditure demands stable, predictable, and sustainable domestic revenue.
“History will judge this reform not simply by the revenues it generates, but by the trust it rebuilds between the Nigerian state and its citizens. It is essential that we are clear about the role of the Nigeria Revenue Service. NRS is not just another agency. It is the nation’s revenue system integrator,” he said.
