The convener of the African Renaissance Movement (ARM), Dr Aliyu Audu Adagu, has decried the alleged penchant of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to impose levies and taxes on Nigerians who are already at the receiving end of hardship and a high cost of living.

Audu, in a statement in Abuja on Thursday, contended that there is nothing to celebrate over the collection of over ₦20 trillion in revenue within the last eight months.

Audu, who resigned his position as an aide on Public Affairs to President Tinubu earlier in the year, remarked that Nigeria needs a leader who puts “dignity before digits.”

He said, “But behind the numbers lies a bitter truth: this government is more obsessed with money accumulation than with people’s welfare. For nearly two years, contractors have remained unpaid, capital projects have stalled, and small businesses are collapsing under the weight of government arrears.

“Yet Nigerians are squeezed harder with higher import duties, stealth taxes, and a punishing cost of living. Revenue rises; lives fall. The paradox is global shame. At the very moment Tinubu is boasting about historic revenues, the United States is sending emergency food aid to Nigeria, putting Africa’s largest economy in the same humanitarian category as Haiti and the Congo.

“This is not reform. It is cruelty dressed as fiscal success. A government that boasts of revenues while its people starve has lost its moral compass. Tinubu’s obsession with accumulation mirrors the man himself, one who seeks to own everything while his people own only despair.”