President Bola Tinubu has permanently abolished the 5 per cent excise duty on telecommunications services, two years after the policy was first suspended.
The abolishment is part of efforts to ease financial pressures on consumers and businesses in Nigeria’s digital economy.
At a media briefing in Abuja on Tuesday, the Executive Vice-Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Mr Aminu Maida, said the excise levy, initially suspended in 2023, has now been officially removed under revised national tax laws.
“The 5 per cent excise duty is no longer in effect,” Mr Maida stated.
“Initially, it was only suspended, but the President has now completely removed it. I was present when the issue was raised, and he firmly said, ‘No, we cannot place this burden on Nigerians.’ I was very pleased to see that this directive was upheld in the new legislation,” he added.
The duty, which applied to mobile voice and data services, had sparked significant backlash from both industry stakeholders and consumer advocacy groups, who argued it would increase the cost of digital access and threaten the viability of telecom operators already grappling with high operational costs.
Business Post reports that President Tinubu first suspended the tax in July 2023 as part of a broader fiscal policy overhaul aimed at mitigating the impact of multiple tax burdens on businesses and households.
However, the issue resurfaced in October 2024, when the National Assembly proposed reinstating the tax as part of broader revenue-generating measures, which also included levies on gaming, betting, and lottery services.
The proposal was met with strong resistance from the telecom sector.
One of such was from the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), which argued that reinstating the excise duty would undermine service affordability and hinder sectoral growth, particularly at a time when reliable internet access is increasingly vital to Nigeria’s economy.
In July 2023, Mr Tinubu signed four Executive Orders, one of which is the suspension of the five per cent Excise Tax on telecommunication services, as well as the Excise Duties escalation on locally manufactured products.
Also, the late former president Muhammadu Buhari-led administration, in late March 2022 had announced the exemption of the Nigerian digital economy from the proposed 5 per cent excise duty introduced in 2022.