Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola has openly stated that the rich must be taxed mercilessly in order to eradicate poverty in Nigeria.
Aregbesola made this known while speaking at the 60th birthday of the former governor of Oyo state, Abiola Ajimobi.
Aregbesola has always been a believer of using the wealth of the wealthy to empower the poor.
According to him, “We must mercilessly tax the rich, if we are to cure the problem of poverty. We have two contending forces, the poor and the privileged rich,”.
“The rich have no problem, they are comfortable. The problem is the poor and they are in the majority. And the point is if the rich failed to address this problem, the comfort of the rich will be taken away, so they must release much of their money to help the poor.”
However, the Minister of Interior has made no pretence about his stance on placing heavy taxes on the few rich in the society.
During his screening at the Senate in July, the Minister told the members of Senate that he would pioneer privilege taxes for Nigerians with huge resources to help the other citizens struggling for survival.
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“So, I am going to pioneer privilege taxes for those who have huge resources or wealth from which Nigerians must tap. If I go into this, there might be some ill feelings in some quarters, so I won’t go deep into that. I will recommend serious taxation for wealthy people in Nigeria.”