Employed as a so-called tax collector by a number of influential households, Captain Nwokuha has a fearsome look as he walks round with a bit of wooden to implement his authority at a busy and chaotic highway junction within the southern Nigerian metropolis of Port Harcourt.
The 34-year-old’s job is to gather “taxes” for what he calls the “neighborhood” from taxis and 18-seater buses that function in that a part of the town.
Mr Nwokuha’s work has its roots in an previous custom, when companies used to pay a one-off charge, or present a drink, as homage to their hosts for good tidings.
However now it has become what critics say is an extortion racket.
Some households, claiming to behave on behalf of native communities, demand charges from companies, be they taxi drivers or market merchants, working in what they see as their area.
Mr Nwokuha says he collects 5-7,000 naira (£5-7; $6.50-9) a day – an affordable quantity in Nigeria.
Married with two kids, he retains a number of the cash whereas the remaining is given to 5 highly effective households locally – the place it will get misplaced in a path of personal pockets.
So-called tax collectors or third-party brokers are additionally utilized by Nigeria’s states and native governments to gather some taxes.
“These brokers use non-public accounts and make deductions earlier than remitting to the federal government,” says Michael Ango, a former authorities tax official who’s now with non-public agency Andersen Tax.
“[Their methods] create the impression that the state is utilizing would possibly and muscle reasonably than legitimacy.”
Led by new President Bola Tinubu, Nigeria’s federal authorities has vowed to crack down on what it calls “touts, miscreants and self-imposed tax collectors”.
As for Mr Nwokuha, he believes he’s enjoying a optimistic position, doubling up as a site visitors officer who resolves disputes within the cut-throat taxi enterprise.
“If there’s a combat among the many drivers I settle it,” says Mr Nwokuha, who patrols Port Harcourt’s profitable Rumuola interchange on weekdays from daybreak to nightfall in his fluorescent vest.
Earlier than a driver units off, the person with “process pressure” written on his vest receives 20% of the passengers’ fares.
“The taxis usually are not allowed to function right here,” says Mr Nwokuha, pointing at a “no parking” signal painted in police colors.
“But when they select to, then they need to pay to the neighborhood,” he tells the BBC.
On the uncommon event {that a} driver refuses to pay, they may have a facet mirror or taillight damaged – or their registration plates eliminated.
In the event that they dare combat again, they may really feel Mr Nwokuha’s wood stick cracking their cranium.
Mr Nwokuha is doing what must be the job of staff of the native council. Nigeria has 780 native councils however most of them are hardly practical.
The vacuum is stuffed by males like Mr Nwokuha – or simply about anybody who can arrange a roadblock and implement their authority.
These are inclined to encompass a wood bar between two rusty barrels, and home-made spikes for drivers who wish to be good by attempting to keep away from them.
They’re commonest within the richer southern components of Nigeria, together with highways the place tax assortment is completed on behalf of some state governments.
One lorry driver tells the BBC he pays as a lot as 80,000 naira (£80; $100) as he travels by means of scores of roadblocks on his means from Nigeria’s greatest metropolis, Lagos, to Imo within the east: a distance of 540km (335 miles).
“Between Edo and Port Harcourt [alone] there are 15 such roadblocks,” he provides.
Expressing an analogous view, a cold-chain logistics operator says: “There are quite a few haulage taxes, there’s one referred to as income, there’s a radio tax, there’s a tax for loading, one other for parking, one for unloading.”
And that isn’t together with the bribes he typically has to pay cops as he drives across the nation.
Clement Akanibo, of Nigeria’s Chartered Institute of Taxation, describes it as “akin to amassing tax at gunpoint”.
“It makes it tough to do enterprise and will increase the ultimate value by as a lot as 15%,” he says.
It’s unclear how Mr Tinubu plans to finish this, however he’ll want the assist of state and native governments as these taxes fall below their jurisdiction – not that of the federal authorities.
At its coronary heart lies a robust system of patronage that sees a portion of the cash going into the pockets of politicians, highly effective households, and the military of unemployed males like Mr Nwokuha.
Mr Tinubu’s authorities says it desires to overtake your entire tax system to spice up its income so it will probably enhance the quantity it spends on companies like well being and training, in addition to repay its ballooning money owed.
It has set itself the goal of accelerating the tax-to-GDP ratio to 18% throughout the subsequent three years.
Official Nigerian information exhibits the ratio was round 11% in 2021, decrease than what the World Financial institution reported for Kenya (13%) and South Africa (26%).
For now, Mr Tinubu’s authorities is specializing in the taxes it’s chargeable for – together with Worth-Added Tax (VAT).
The federal authorities doesn’t use so-called tax collectors, anticipating companies to make direct funds.
In what seems to be an try to finish tax evasion, it desires to digitise VAT funds, beginning with the 40 million-strong affiliation of market merchants.
This may not be straightforward as most of them don’t hold monetary data and have by no means paid VAT, so would possibly resist the transfer amid the present financial hardship.
But when the plan works, Mr Tinubu’s authorities may then hope to influence state and native governments to drop their archaic system – one thing that many Nigerians would welcome as it will free them from the clutches of menacing tax collectors like Mr Nwokuha.