The news came like a thunderbolt, and it is almost unbelievable, at least to those who are exposed to the normal ways governments are run in other climes.  Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue, Mr Babatunde Fowler, has disclosed that only 13.4 million, or about 16 per cent of an estimated population of 180 million Nigerians (out of which about 80 per cent are adults) pay their taxes.

If there is any reason that Nigeria belongs among the underdeveloped nations of the world, this sad statistic is a grievous expression of it. In fact, non payment of tax by majority of taxable adults ranks alongside corruption as a reason for our backwardness as a nation.

Elementary civics teaches us that payment of taxes is one of the hallmarks of good citizenship, indeed an obligation and the 1999 Constitution and other extant laws make it clear that those who neglect to pay their taxes are lawbreakers.

Nigeria is a nation where the vast majority of its taxable adults are tax dodgers, a trend which has gone on for decades. It is indicative of a seriously flawed system. In other countries, tax dodgers are criminals and outcasts;  rotten apples in the barrel.

This civic malaise set in with the advent of cheap, free rent from our oil resources. Before the civil war, the various Regions survived on taxes and rates with which they built lasting legacies for their people. Those were the days when Nigeria still behaved like a country with great promise.

With the coming of oil revenue, governance was centralised, and governments became too lazy to tax  citizens and increase the pool of revenue available for development. Because the people were not paying taxes, they stopped bothering about what government officials did with what was supposed to be public funds.

This madness must stop. Nobody who is making a living, not matter how menial, is too poor to pay taxes. The various tax authorities must make more efforts to bring as many taxable adults as possible into the tax net. Every adult must pay his or her tax, no matter how little. It will even help  galvanise the populace to show more interest in how they are governed. It will promote transparency, accountability and check corruption.

The reality of our economic situation is that the age of free oil money is gone for good. The nation must now make the necessary adjustments to survive beyond oil. We must return governance to the people through the devolution of powers and getting the people to finance their own governments.

The work involved is not just a cosmetic burdening of the FIRS. It involves major constitutional and attitudinal changes. The time to do it is now.