A Thirteen-Fold Tax Hike is Not a Health Policy

ABUJA, NIGERIA — As the Nigerian Senate Joint Committee on Finance, Customs and Excise convenes its public hearing on the proposal to raise the Sugar-Sweetened Beverage excise tax from ₦10 to ₦130 per litre, the Foundation for Consumer Freedom Advancement (FCFA) is calling on the Committee to reject any rate increase that is not paired with full revenue transparency and verifiable earmarking.

The proposal before the Senate is a thirteen-fold increase. That scale of change to a consumer tax has to be justified by something more than projection figures from advocacy reports. So far, it has not been.

"Nigerian consumers are being asked to pay thirteen times more on every bottle of soft drink they buy, and no one has shown them where the existing ₦10 has gone since 2021. This isn't a debate between public health and industry. It's a question of whether the people who pay this tax at the checkout deserve to see the health system that was promised to them. They do."

— Olumayowa Okediran, Founder of the Foundation for Consumer Freedom Advancement

The Real Problem

Nigeria's NCD burden is real. The healthcare financing gap is real. But raising a consumption tax that already lacks transparency, ring-fencing, and public reporting will not close that gap. It will pass the cost of an unsolved policy problem to ordinary Nigerians at the point of sale.

What FCFA Asks of the Senate

The Foundation for Consumer Freedom Advancement asks the Senate Joint Committee to require, before any rate change, a full public accounting of SSB tax revenues collected since 2022, the specific health programmes those revenues funded, and a binding earmarking framework with annual public reporting. Without those three things, the rate is the wrong question.