Former presidential aide, Reno Omokri has knocked one Ogbonnaya who claimed on X that with Nigeria’s oil reserve, the country should be very rich and comparable with the West.
Omokri said that with Nigeria’s average earning of $150 per person from crude oil, and tax-to-GDP ratio of 6%, the country is classified as poor.
He made comparisons with Saudi Arabia, Ghana, Qartar and others.
He wrote:
Dear Ogbonnaya,
… On the substantive issues you raised, please note that many Nigerians, like you, complain that they want what obtains in Europe and America. However, European nations, like Germany, have a tax-to-GDP ratio of 39%, and the U.S. has a tax-to-GDP ratio of 25.2%, while Nigeria has a tax-to-GDP ratio of about 6%.
Please fact-check me: If you earn €58.597 in Germany, you will pay 42% of your income or €24,610 as taxes. If you earn $60,000 in America, you will pay 36% of that, or $22.150, as tax. It is from these taxes that their governments raise funds for subsidies to the poor in society.
If you ask Nigerians to pay this type of tax, there will be riots and protests. So, where will the money to run Nigeria come from?
That is why the Buhari regime borrowed more money than ALL previous administrations from Tafawa Balewa to Jonathan combined. And, Ogbonnaya, that simply was not sustainable. How can we be paying for subsidies with debt when other nations are paying theirs with tax income?
Saudi Arabia has a population of 35 million and makes $350 billion annually from oil. That is $10,000 per citizen. Nigeria has a population of 220 million people and generates approximately $36 billion from crude annually. That is $150 per person. At 2.6 million people, Qatar is just one per cent of our population. Yet, their annual revenue is $68 billion. Two and a half times that of Nigeria.
And from that $150 per person, you want the government to give you the same standard of living as America, where tax forms 25% of their income. Meanwhile, we do not pay tax. But we faithfully pay tithes to churches and do not demand accountability from them. Yet we want accountability from the government to whom we do not pay taxes!
Nigeria is not “oil rich”. We are oil-poor. On a per capita basis, Ghana is more oil-rich than we are. We produce 1.5 million barrels per day for a population of 220 million people. Ghana produces 200,000 barrels per day for a population of 32 million.
Too many of our citizens are easily triggered to be against Nigeria without understanding the facts of the economy.
Sadly, the Black man is too easily led by his emotions. Even what I wrote here will elicit comments like, ‘Who go read this long thing?’. And because we do not read, it is easy for people to mislead us.
Thanks again, and may God bless you.