By Moses Oludele Idowu
The great German theologian and saint, Meister Echart once said that the traders and money-changers in the Temple were not driven out by Jesus because they changed money or traded; they were driven out because they did it “for profit.” The changing of money or trading was not the sin because they had to change money and trade. Jews from the Diaspora coming for the yearly celebration and worship with different currencies must change their money in the Temple and make purchases. That was not the sin in itself and that was not what the Lord Jesus was against. It was the profiteering that irked the Lord. They did it not for service or for love for their fellow men or even for God but for their personal gain and selfish interest. This is what offended the Lord and why He had to drive them out of the Temple. The service was not what Jesus was against it was the profiteering.
Curiously Adolf Hitler made reference to this in his book showing he had read this German theologian and scholar that lived several centuries before him.
What is the essence of corruption?.What is corruption? Most Nigerians don’t know the answer to those questions. Most public officials don’t know the answer to that because this is not a nation groomed with a Culture of Honour.
Corruption is more than stealing, over-invoicing, misappropriation, inflation of contract costs, round- tripping, bribery and a thousand and one things that Nigerian civil servants and politicians use to keep Nigeria financially depleted and poor. These are the effects, the symptoms, the manifestations of the fruit of the evil tree. But what is that tree? What is the essence of corruption that fuels all these numerous evils? It is SELF, love of self. It is putting private interests above public good; it is exalting personal goals and desires above common good and public welfare. It is driving policies solely and specifically because of its prospects for personal profits instead of national development.
Across Nigeria today are numerous projects abandoned after several billions and hundreds of billions have been expended over them. No feasibility studies, need assessment studies, cash backing, cost- benefit assessment… Nothing. Just someone at the helms interested in his own kickback and brokerage. And after leaving office the project is abandoned because the new hegemon must work for his own cut and gain.
It is all about profiteering not about service. This is why today inspite of the enormous amount of money coming to the states you don’t see any development. Except only in the state capitals if at all. Just go outside the state capitals to.the rural areas and you are met with squalor, extremely bad and unmotorable road networks, entire communities crying for development.
How many of.the policies of government are actually for the service of the people they govern? The essence of corruption is the motive driving development plans and engagement. What is the motive? Is it conceived in the interest and for the interest of the people or for personal profits and interest of the people in power?
Of all schemes of corruption however there is none as bad and terrible as the one which this article intends to address. In my view this is the worst form of corruption. Some call it rentier system or rent- seeking but I call it state robbery or Temple- profiteering.
When a man designs a scheme whereby he is the sole beneficiary, collects rent from the state; when a man designs a legal or conventional scheme or fiscal arrangement whereby a certain percentage of what should go normally to the State comes to him by whatever shenanigans then that must pass as the worst form of state robbery. This is like the Temple profiteering that Jesus rose against.
Let me now be specific. Take Lagos State for example. Lagos generates the largest amount of fund as Internally Generated Revenue annually among all states in Nigeria. For instance according to the Bureau of Statistics (NBS) Lagos generated N1.261 trillion in 2024 alone. Impressive. Isn’t it?
Here is the k- leg. That money would have been more, or less depending. One company belonging to one man takes 10% of that entire IGR for its “services” of tracking, computing and reconciling the State’s IGR. Is there anything among those services listed that the state civil service or Inland Revenue Service cannot perform on their own? What is so special about tracking or computing that LASU cannot train the civil service to handle?
Think of 10% or 15% of 1.3 trillion going to one man?
For instance if you want to pay tax to Lagos State through the bank, the bank will ask for.your Tax Identification Number. Now you can’t obtain this number unless through Alpha Beta Consortium. Even if you want to pay to Lagos Government directly you must go through Alpha Beta so that it can track and take its own 10 or 15%. Even when the payment is not through its solicitation, effort or service.
This is the rentier system in action. This is portfolio crony capitalism – the very type Karl Marx wrote vehemently against. It does not build anything, it creates nothing; just legal convention, pact, syndicated financial arrangements based on connection and endless brokerages and rents from the State. It is alleged that Professor Yemi Osinbajo, a “useful idiot” in the APC’s game of thrones, drew this legal framework and convention as Attorney General of Lagos State.
In 2020 alone Alpha Beta collected N150 billion naira according to its former Managing Director, Oladapo Apara ( see _Punch_ 9 October 2020)..Of this money how much did Alpha Beta pay to the Government as its own tax? Nothing. According to the same director the organization has defrauded the government tax arrears running to about N100 billion which she refused to pay. In the suit which he filed against the organization and its leadership he is accusing one Bola Ahmed Tinubu of owing him his entitlements for service rendered. He also filed a petition with the EFCC against the same Bola Ahmed Tinubu who owns Alpha Beta Consortium. So the people who collects tax themselves don’t pay tax. Any progress with the petition with EFCC? Something would have happened to that file by now. You know better than I do.
This is how Nigeria runs. Rents, brokerage, crony capitalism. This is why in every budget you hear of trillions of naira but by year end the trillions have evaporated to private pockets with no development in view.
The capitalism of Henry Ford, Andrew Carnegie and John Rockefeller built nations because it created real industrial complex, invented tangible things that you could see and which made life easier. It created jobs and people worked. Automobile, rail road, oil rigs, exploration, steel, – tangible things. That is what made America great and number one nation on the map. Even Karl Marx would salute the courage and labour and ingenuity and doggedness of this class of people. Because they worked. That is real capitalism.
The Crony Capitalism of NIgerian political/ criminal elites built nothing except clientelism, rentierism, cronyism. That is why Nigeria is not developed and is not developing or on the way to Development. It is not rocket science. Development follows a beaten path and sadly Nigeria – ruled by a succession of incompetent and under-achieving leaders – is not on that path.
Why do I write this? I am not from Lagos State and in a sense I am not bothered about Lagos. But then something like that is being planned for Nigeria. The same legal framework, the same fiscal _makaruru_ and convention that funnels 10% or 15% of what comes to a state to an individual is also being worked upon secretly to avoid noise and protests. While the nation is distracted with insecurity and banditry something sinister and devious is being planned quietly underground by the same enslavers and their revenue and financial cartels and “useful idiots.” And I cannot accept that.
For sometime now we have been told that from next year 2026 everyone will begin to pay tax. Nigerian government especially of the APC never seems to have enough. As they are collecting taxes, they are borrowing from blue and black and still they are always complaining of lack of funds. Even Lagos for all its humongous internally generated revenue is still the most indebted state in the nation. Same for all APC states. Yet, where is the development? Where do all these money go from all these taxes, loans, grants?
Taiwo Oyedele, a tax expert and another “useful idiot” that has been co-opted into this service has been busy lecturing NIgerians on all available platforms about the reforms that are coming. How they will take money from people’s bank accounts (without consent?) and do many things to beef up Nigeria revenue.
I can live with this, although the trouble with Nigeria is not lack of money; it is the mismanagement of funds. [ Nigeria does not have a _money problem_ , she has an _idea problem_ . The trouble is that money leaks through several drain pipes and leakages and no one is blocking them.]
However, there is something they are not telling us and they are not telling us because they know we will shout “blue murder.”
How?
The same Lagos Template based on Alpha Beta scientific/ legal model of executive extortion and state robbery is being designed for the Federal Revenue to make one man or group of Lagos boys extremely rich above the rest of us.
According to the Vanguard newspaper of Monday November 24 at page 9 one Xpress Payment Solutions Limited has been appointed as a new collecting agent under the Treasury Single Account framework of Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS).
If this is true some questions need to be asked. Who owns Xpress Payment Solutions Limited and who are its shareholders? Why is this appointment made secretly and quietly without any media coverage? Why was there no legislative oversight, stakeholder engagement, consultation, public awareness of an appointment as serious as this? Is this another attempt to replicate through disingenuous ways the Alpha Beta model on a national scale?
Why is a third party consultant necessary to collect money for FIRS when it will be directly through bank accounts? Does a bank need an outsider or external agent to collect COT or service charges for her? This is dubiousness. This is state robbery by other means.
Why do we need private intermediaries between government revenue and the state? Is the State so helpless that it cannot collect its money by itself? Why create a loophole to surcharge the state and dispossess her of resources?
While we are distracted with national security some fast guys are cooking something behind us. These “Lagos boys” are up to something and they will succeed if we allow them.
This is clientelism, rentierism of the worst kind. Just think of 10% or 15% of all Nigerian Revenue coming to “one person or a cartel of revenue collectors”? NIgerians must challenge this. It is not ethical. This is profiteering, this is private interests disguised as public service like the Temple traders of the First century Jesus drove out with whips.
If this is allowed to sail then forget about 2027 and subsequent elections. They will offer voters even any amount for their votes and no one will be able to dislodge them – just as it is now in Lagos State. Because they will have too much money to fight. You have seen bullion vans, then you will see helicopter distributing money from the sky.
Just go to sleep and see what happens.
The trouble with Nigerian politicians is not only that they are clueless; yes, they are clueless when it comes to governance and bringing the dividends of democracy to the people. But they are not clueless when it comes to subverting the State to serve their personal gain and selfish interests. They are not clueless in what one Marxist scholar calls “the political economy of state robbery” or in the “misuse of government authority for personal gain.” This is the essence of corruption, when personal interest verges on public welfare or good that one action serves both. It is not about service for common good but motive of personal profits and gain.
If the traders of the Temple deserved a whip of cords, Nigerian politicians deserve to be whipped with scorpions.
The “evil genius” may not be living in retirement he could still be in public service. The “evil genius” may not be the man on Hilltop in Minna; he is possibly a Nigerian politician in the Senate or Aso Rock or possibly living around Bourdillon.
This scheme must be resisted. It is unethical, arbitrary and unpatriotic. If it is true it must die stillborn. _Nigeria no be Lagos_
© Moses Oludele Idowu
November 27, 2025
All Rights Reserved
