The Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS) broke its record revenue collection performance, posting N28.3 trillion to surpass the set target of N25.2 trillion last year.

This was disclosed by Amina Ado Kurawa, Executive Director of the Government and Large Taxpayers Group, at the opening of a two-day management retreat in Abuja yesterday.

Kurawa, in a statement signed by Dare Adekanmbi, Special Adviser (Media) to the NRS chairman, 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.

Earlier, the Executive Chairman, Zacch Adedeji of the NRS, charged the management and staff members of the agency to discard outdated beliefs, noting that the credibility of Nigeria’s revenue architecture and confidence in the Nigerian economy rest on their shoulders.

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 the moment.

“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 NRS will not be defined by what we say in this room. It will be defined by who we become after we leave it.”

Kurawa, 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 realised 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, digitalisation 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.

Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, 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.

The chairman of the National Tax Policy Implementation Committee, Joseph Tegbe, stressed the need for clinical delivery and execution of the tax laws.

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.