Oyedele says Nigeria raised N33tn in 10 months, credits e-invoicing
- Finance Minister Taiwo Oyedele said Nigeria collected N33 trillion in government revenue from January to October 2026.
- He credited better digital systems, including electronic invoicing, for part of the improvement.
- Oyedele also warned that about 90% of Nigeria's data is stored abroad, costing the country value.
The Federal Government brought in N33 trillion between January and October 2026, Finance Minister and Coordinating Minister of the Economy Taiwo Oyedele said on Thursday, pointing to electronic invoicing and other digital tools as part of the reason collections rose.
Oyedele gave the figure in a convocation lecture at the University of Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, according to a statement from his office signed by Maryann Duke, his Senior Special Assistant on Communications and Press Secretary. The lecture was titled "Digital Sovereignty and Ethics: Guarding the Economy for the Next Generation."
For ordinary Nigerians, the number matters because government spending on roads, schools, health and security depends on how much revenue actually lands in the treasury. Better tax collection through digital records can also mean fewer leakages, though it places more reporting demands on businesses.
Data kept abroad
The minister said Nigeria had more than 157 million active internet subscriptions as of May 2026, citing figures from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), the telecoms regulator. Those connections, he said, produce valuable information through payments, health records, schooling and tax filing.
Yet he cited estimates from the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) that as much as 90 per cent of the country's data is stored outside Nigeria. That, he argued, means money leaves the country in foreign exchange, jobs and skills are lost, and Nigeria has less say over information generated by its own citizens.
Oyedele compared the situation to Nigeria's long reliance on imported petrol, warning that the digital economy should not follow the same path, where Nigerian data is processed abroad and the finished services are sold back to Nigerians.
He called for more investment in local data centres, technical skills, cybersecurity and clear, predictable regulation. He stressed that keeping data at home should not mean shutting out the world, but building enough strength to compete internationally.
Message to graduates
Turning to the graduating students, Oyedele urged them to build technology products rather than only buying what others make. He named artificial intelligence as both a disruption and an opening, and advised them to pair digital skills with critical thinking and integrity.
He also warned that what young people post online now follows them into jobs and business dealings.
"Your degree is evidence of what you have learned. Your competence will demonstrate what you can do. Your character will reveal who you truly are,"
he told the graduands.
He asked universities to work more closely with government and industry on practical problems in farming, energy, health and the environment, and said schools should be judged not only by how many students graduate or papers published, but by the businesses and innovations they produce.
The e-invoicing system, run by the Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS), began for large taxpayers in August 2025 after pilot tests, and the agency later directed big companies to adopt it fully by July 31, 2026.
