Edino Chubiyo Cornelius 
NEF spokesperson Prof. Abubakar Jiddere
ABUJA, Nigeria – The Northern Elders Forum (NEF) calls on the Federal Government to immediately cancel the tax cooperation agreement between Nigeria’s Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and France’s tax authority, warning it threatens economic sovereignty.
In an open letter addressed to the Presidency and the National Assembly sighted by our correspondent on Sunday, the forum describes the Memorandum of Understanding as a national security risk capable of exposing Nigeria’s tax infrastructure to foreign access.
The letter, signed by NEF spokesperson Prof. Abubakar Jiddere, warns that granting any form of external access to tax data undermines fiscal independence and long-term revenue planning.
“Taxpayer information is a strategic national asset and must remain under Nigerian control,” Jiddere says.
The forum references France’s historical economic engagements in Africa, arguing that such arrangements often result in dependency, political pressure and external influence.
Citing data protection expert Dr Segun Adebayo, the elders caution that sensitive tax information could be vulnerable to economic espionage and geopolitical manipulation.
NEF also criticises what it calls weak legislative safeguards, insisting that stronger data sovereignty laws could have prevented the agreement from being signed without parliamentary oversight.
The group urges the government to rely on Nigerian technology firms, cancel the MoU and pass pending data protection amendments before the Nigeria Revenue Service becomes operational in January 2026. “This is no longer a policy issue but a matter of national survival,” the forum says.
FIRS, however, maintains that the agreement, signed on December 10, 2025, is limited to technical assistance and capacity building, involving only aggregated and anonymised data.
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Oluwatobi Adu 
Koko Maxwella 