Nigeria, despite being the largest economy on the African continent, has recorded the lowest tax-to-GDP ratio in West Africa, standing at just 8.2 per cent — a figure that places it at the very bottom of a regional comparison that exposes the country’s persistent struggle to translate its enormous economic size into meaningful government revenue.

The data, drawn from the OECD’s Revenue Statistics in Africa 2025 publication, reveals a stark contrast between Nigeria and its West African neighbours. Senegal leads the region with a tax-to-GDP ratio of 16.8 per cent, followed by Burkina Faso at 14.6 per cent, Ghana at 14.5 per cent, Mali at 14.4 per cent, and Togo at 13.6 per cent. Côte d’Ivoire and Gambia both stand at 13 per cent, while Sierra Leone records 12.3 per cent, Guinea 12.2 per cent, Liberia 10.8 per cent, and Niger 10 per cent. Nigeria trails every single one of them, sitting nearly nine percentage points below Senegal’s leading figure.

The 8.2 per cent figure also falls dramatically short of the African continent’s average of 16.1 per cent, meaning Nigeria collects in taxes roughly half of what the average African country raises relative to the size of its economy. It also falls well below the minimum 15 per cent threshold recommended by the African Union as necessary for sustainable development. Analysts have long warned that this chronic revenue gap has deepened Nigeria’s infrastructure deficit, widened inequality, and increased the country’s vulnerability to debt and external financial shocks.

The situation is particularly striking given Nigeria’s status as Africa’s largest oil producer and the continent’s most populous nation. Experts have pointed to a combination of factors driving the underperformance, including widespread tax evasion, a large informal sector, weak enforcement mechanisms, an over-reliance on oil revenues, and structural gaps in the country’s tax administration framework.

However, there is cautious optimism that the numbers may improve. A sweeping package of tax reforms signed into law by President Bola Tinubu took effect from January 1, 2026, with projections from professional services firm PwC estimating the ratio could climb to around 10.2 per cent this year and as high as 12.5 per cent by 2027.

The government’s stated ambition is even more ambitious to raise Nigeria’s tax-to-GDP ratio to 18 per cent within the next few years. Whether the reforms can bridge the yawning gap between Nigeria’s current reality and those targets remains one of the central fiscal questions facing the Tinubu administration.