Last week, the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) signed an MoU with France’s Direction Générale des Finances Publiques (DGFiP), handing one of Europe’s most sophisticated tax agencies direct collaboration on Nigeria’s digital tax infrastructure. Whilst the gains are projected all over our newspapers, it is important to note that this is not a harmless technical partnership; it is the latest and most dangerous chapter in a long campaign by foreign interests to gain control over Nigeria’s sovereign tax data.
I warned about this exact scenario nine months ago in my keynote speech “Protecting Our Tax Sovereignty” at the Public Hearing on Tax Reforms organised by the Youths in Parliament March, 2025.
In my speech then I said: “Nigeria is a fintech powerhouse. We have Flutterwave, PayStack, Interswitch, PiggyVest, Bamboo, NIBSS — we lead Africa in innovation and internet usage. Our greatest asset is our people. Yet foreign interests are circling, offering ‘help’ that comes at the cost of our economic independence. Taxpayer data is national power. Allowing foreign control over this data is a threat to national security.”
In my Senate Pressroom address on March 26, 2025, I stated to the press that “if you allow your tax information into the hands of foreign interests, it is as good as handing over the keys to your house and bedroom to a visitor who visited you.”
This preceded my meeting with Senator Ned Munir Nwoko on amending his Nigerian Data Protection Act (Amendment) Bill, 2025 (SB 650) to include new paragraphs to protect our financial and gps data as ‘sensitive data’, and also promoting new clauses to protect our data from foreign interests. Senator Ned Nwoko listened keenly, directing his team to engage further while we prepared for the bill’s public hearing.
Unfortunately, the tax reform bills passed without these protections, and now, this MoU arrives, unscrutinized.
No foreign nation helps for free; they gain leverage over our economic weaknesses. If France assesses which sectors thrive or falter, they can sway trade, investments, and negotiations in their favour. Why bypass our homegrown giants?
Nine months ago, in a House of Assembly speech, I queried: “Why not engage PayStack, Flutterwave, Interswitch, Bamboo, and NIBSS; the toast of the continent, instead of signing away to France?” Nigerians have built world-class Core Banking Applications; we don’t need outsiders to “fix” what we pioneered.
Why the FIRS-France MoU is a direct national security threat
- Loss of economic control
Any country that outsources its tax data management becomes a financial puppet. - Mass surveillance and exploitation
Foreign-controlled systems open the door to espionage, digital colonisation and economic sabotage. - Geopolitical blackmail
Real-time visibility into which sectors thrive and which sectors struggle gives France leverage in every future trade, investment and loan negotiation.
No serious country hands its tax backbone to a foreign power. None.
- In my submission to Senator Ned [Nwoko] in support of his bill, these were the amendments I proposed to block scenarios like the FIRS-France deal:
- Classify financial data including tax records as Sensitive Personal Data under Section 65 of the NDPA 2023.
- Require that any service provider processing sensitive tax data must be at least 80% Nigerian-owned and Nigerian-controlled (new subsection to Section 29).
- Mandate heightened security and local ownership requirements for tax data under Section 39 (Data Security).
- Force disclosure of nationality and ownership of all subcontractors handling tax records (Section 44).
- Extend cross-border transfer restrictions (Sections 41-43) to domestic processors that are foreign-owned.
- Empower the Nigeria Data Protection Commission to set minimum Nigerian ownership thresholds for entities accessing tax data (Section 61).
These amendments would have made the FIRS-France partnership legally impossible without National Assembly approval. Yet the tax reform bills were passed and this MoU was signed without incorporating a single one of them.
I repeat here the exact demands I made in March 2025:
- The full execution of Nigeria’s tax reforms must remain 100 percent in Nigerian hands.
- Foreign entities must not have access to Nigerian tax data, financial transactions or national digital records.
- Homegrown institutions — NIBSS, Flutterwave, PayStack, Interswitch and others — must be contracted to build and run our tax technology.
- All foreign-led digital tax integration proposals, including the FIRS-France MoU, must be terminated with immediate effect.
The National Assembly must urgently pass the data-sovereignty amendments listed above before the Nigeria Revenue Service commences operations in January 2026.
Tax data is the heartbeat of our economy and no nation surrenders its heartbeat and expects to remain sovereign.
The National Assembly, the Presidency, and every patriotic Nigerian must rise now and stop this dangerous precedent. Our economic future must remain firmly in Nigerian hands. Protecting our national sovereignty is a key responsibility for a nationalist driven administration.
Dr Segun Adebayo is executive director, Center for African Policy Research and Advisory, (CAfPRA), co-founder and deputy director, Center for Food Safety and Agricultural Research (CEFSAR), and director, Africa, Global Reputation Forum.
