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Dear reader, I seek, in this piece, to wrestle with the metaphor of ‘Musa the gateman’ – the conceptual spine of the entire thesis here, which symbolizes the ordinary Nigerian trapped at the gate of a state that continually shocks him with its policy contradictions, in this case, the proposed taxation of sex workers. In Nigeria’s bustling idiomatic marketplace, the expression of Nigeria’s archetypal gateman – “Nothing wey Musa no go see for gate” – has transcended the comic idiom to become a sociological metaphor. Musa, the ubiquitous gateman, is not merely a bystander but a symbol — the metaphor of national spectatorship.
Musa is the generic gateman in the theatre of Nigerian life, whose story never grows old. He is the archetype of every ordinary Nigerian stationed at the symbolic gate of the nation’s daily absurdities. Stationed at the threshold between the ruling elite and the proletariat, he witnesses daily the parade of ironies, oddities, and contradictions that define the Nigerian experience. From his sentry post, Musa watches the parade of the powerful and the procession of the perplexing. At his post, between the palatial opulence of the elite and the desolate streets of the poor, Musa sees it all – the paradoxes, bizarre and grotesque distortions that characterize theatre of governance. Each passing day at the gate brings new spectacles – the fuel subsidy removal that plunged millions into penury; the paradox of quadrupled revenues accruing from subsidy removal windfall, which whets unbridled appetite for more multi-billion borrowing binge and births mounting foreign debt stock in geometric proportions; the cognitive dissonance that denominates World Bank’s fossilized abracadabra – positive macroeconomic stability that stunts microeconomic growth (guillotining 139 million Nigerians into multidimensional poverty); vanishing cash-transfers and palliatives that never reached their targets; government officials mouthing “hope” while millions starve.
And lately, what Musa, the gateman has seen defies even his seasoned imagination. What could be that latest act in the national theatre? It is federal government’s bid to tax the income of sex workers, perhaps, the most tragicomic of all. For Musa, the weary chronicler of the nation’s contradictions, this is indeed the zenith of absurdity. “Musa,” one might say, “you have seen plenty.” But Musa will shake his head, sigh, and mutter the now immortal phrase, “Nothing wey Musa no go see for gate.” Nonetheless, the logic of the policy, as explained by the administration’s tax czar, Taiwo Oyedele – Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms – appears at first glance impeccably rational. There is, of course, a macroeconomic logic behind the rhetoric. Nigeria’s tax-to-GDP ratio is stubbornly low and the state’s fiscal needs ballooned after subsidy removals and currency adjustments. The Tinubu administration’s tax reform package – which consolidates the Nigeria Tax Act (NTA), the Nigeria Tax Administration Act (NTAA), the Nigeria Revenue Service (Establishment) Act (NRSEA) and the Joint Revenue Board (Establishment) Act (JRBEA) – is explicitly designed to broaden the revenue base and simplify collection. The reforms were debated and passed through the National Assembly in 2025 and scheduled to take effect in stages, with many provisions kicking in from 1 January 2026.
Seen through that lens, widening the net to include informal and illicit income streams is a predictable, even predictable if politically combustible, policy choice. Every income, Mr. Oyedele insists, must be taxable – irrespective of its source. It is part of the administration’s effort to widen the tax net, simplify compliance, and plug fiscal leakages in line with the Renewed Hope Agenda. To the economist, it is sound arithmetic. The government needs revenue; revenue comes from income; sex work generates income; therefore, tax must be paid. But to Musa, and by extension, to millions of Nigerians at the receiving end of governance experiments, this seems every inch another episode in the unending serial of state-sponsored assaults on the collective sensibility of the citizenry. The same state that criminalizes prostitution now seeks to formalize its proceeds as a source of national revenue. The policy poses a number of stark practical questions. How does one tax what one forbids? How does a government that will not protect sex workers’ rights now claim a portion of their wages? How will authorities identify, register, and collect taxes from workers operating in the shadows – in brothels, on dating platforms, through informal arrangements and with cash flows that deliberately avoid traceability? Will enforcement rely on mandatory registration, third-party reporting (clients, hotels, platforms), or targeted raids that will only amplify the vulnerability of those the government now wishes to tax? The administration’s tax adviser has framed the answer in blunt fiscal arithmetic – “if it is income, it is taxable.” Yet, arithmetic does not solve problems of evidence, privacy, stigma, or human rights. The experience of other jurisdictions shows that when criminalization persists, taxation of illicit activities can either push the activity further underground or become a pretext for selective enforcement and extortion.
From his gatehouse of observation, Musa scratches his head. “If this be governance,” he muses, “then logic and commonsense don kpai for Naija.” Beyond the humour, the contradictions are profound. Nigeria’s Criminal Code, Penal Code, and several state laws still classify prostitution as a criminal offence. The police routinely arrest and harass women suspected of sex work. Yet, the tax authority now proposes to assess their earnings, assign Tax Identification Numbers (TIN), and collect their dues, as though to say, “Though your trade is illegal, your income is patriotic.” If that is not moral double-speak, Musa wonders what it is, given that taxation implies recognition. It presupposes that the taxpayer is a legitimate economic actor entitled to protection, confidentiality, and benefits accruing from civic contribution. But what protection awaits a taxpayer, whose very occupation is criminalized? Will the Federal Inland Revenue Service now issue tax clearance certificates to “Licensed Providers of Intimate Services”? Will it publish audit guidelines for “Specialized Client Engagements”? Or perhaps introduce a new revenue line in the national budget code-named: “Proceeds of Vice – Statutory.”
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The irony deepens when one considers enforcement. Tax assessment requires openness — a declaration of income, identity, and location. Yet, the sex worker’s trade thrives in anonymity. To disclose is to risk arrest; to comply is to self-incriminate. Thus, in this theatre of fiscal contradictions, the government demands honesty from those it punishes for being visible. Thus, the taxman’s demand becomes a moral trap, a bureaucratic invitation to ruin. Musa shakes his head again. “Perhaps,” he sighs, “it is not only sex that is being taxed, but common sense itself.” If this new policy were to follow its own logic, Musa might soon expect the taxman to visit other frontiers of illegality. The Yahoo boys – Nigeria’s cyber-trepreneurs – also earn income. Will their flamboyant exploits now attract “fraud proceeds tax”? Will kidnappers receive Value Added Tax (VAT) invoices for ransom transactions? Will the bribe-taker file annual returns under “unearned gratuities”? If every income is taxable, then the border between crime and commerce collapses into comic farce. Musa is posing questions; yet, the tax czar is not forthcoming with answers.
Behind the laughter lies a deeper tragedy. Musa, the proverbial gateman, represents the citizen who endures the consequences of every policy misadventure. His gate is not merely a workplace but a vantage point from which he witnesses the nation’s contradictions unfold daily – fuel subsidy removed without safety nets, currency reforms that impoverish the poor but fattens the rich in insanely inverse proportion, and now a taxation policy that confuses legality with fiscal opportunism. Each new decree arrives at his post like a fresh absurdity stamped with official seal. Taxing sex workers may not in itself destroy the economy, but it reveals a moral drift, a state ready to extract revenue even from the margins of human vulnerability, without first granting recognition, protection, or dignity. It is as if the government, having failed to create jobs, now seeks to monetize desperation.
If indeed the aim is to broaden the tax base, as Musa tries to trace the logical arc, then honesty demands a broader conversation. The logical path is to confront the illegality squarely, either to regulate sex work, granting it the legitimacy required for taxation, or to retain its criminal status and forgo the revenue. To oscillate between both polar positions, for Musa, is to institutionalize hypocrisy – governance without coherence, rhyme or rhythm. The ‘sex tax’ exposes a profound moral schizophrenia. How does a state criminalize prostitution on one hand and seek to tax it on the other? Who collects the revenue? Is it the same police that raid their brothels at night? This is not fiscal reform but economic cannibalism of a mother feeding on her own neglected children. Musa is still scratching his head for answers. For him, to tax the proceeds of desperation is to feed on the vicissitudes of sex workers and convert moral failure into fiscal policy. It is the bureaucratic translation of a curious kind of governance that impoverishes the poor by policy and then taxes their ingenuity for surviving. Which explains why Musa shakes and scratches his head as he mutters his Naija country’s eternal refrain: ‘Nothing wey Musa no go see for gate’.
To be continued
