The Federal Government has revealed that in 2023, Nigerians paid N40.14 billion in road taxes to state governments.

This was contained in an analysis of data from the Internally Generated Revenue report recently published by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

The figure collected was a 63.36 per cent increase from the N24.57 billion collected in 2022, which affirmed the crucial role of road taxes in state-level finances across the country.

According to the report by NBS, Lagos lead other states with a record of N16.74 billion in road tax revenue for 2023.

Despite having no record of road tax revenue in 2022, Lagos State accounted for 41.7 per cent of the total road tax revenue in 2023.

Ebonyi State showed an exceptional increase of 3,804.32 per cent, from N72.95m in 2022 to N2.85bn in 2023 and Rivers State recorded a 270.66 per cent rise, collecting N830.01m compared to N223.93m in 2022.

Sokoto State’s collections increased by 41.22 per cent, and reached N194.66m, while Yobe State saw a 30.4 per cent increase to N81.88 million, despite its relatively modest overall figure.

However, several states experienced declines in road tax collections, as Enugu State reported a 95.12 per cent drop, from N1.1 billion in 2022 to N53.47 million in 2023.

Katsina State experienced a decline of 79.34 per cent, collecting only N29.3m compared to N141.81 million the previous year.

Also, Niger State faced a significant reduction, with revenue falling 53.41 per cent to N190.49 million from N408.83 million in 2022.

Other notable declines include Cross River who recorded a 62.54 per cent drop, with collections plummeting from N3.26bn in 2022 to N1.22bn in 2023 while Abuja recorded no road tax revenue in 2023.

Meanwhile, the NBS highlighted an overall increase in internally generated revenue across Nigerian states, with total IGR reaching N2.43 trillion in 2023, which is up by 26 per cent from N1.93 trillion in 2022.