Governor Uba Sani provided the political will that enabled the Kaduna State Internal Revenue Service (KADIRS) to increase internally generated revenue without interfering with its operations.

The outgoing Executive Chairman of KADIRS, Jerry Adams, said this while speaking at the ongoing 160th meeting of the Joint Revenue Board, being held in Kaduna.

In his submission, Mr Adams noted that Kaduna’s IGR stood at ₦ 58 billion before 2023 and rose to ₦62 billion in 2023, adding that in 2024 it reached ₦71 billion.

‘’In 2025, we recorded an annual revenue of ₦85 billion, with an average monthly collection of ₦7 billion. Today, we are trending towards ₦120 billion, at a monthly average of ₦10 billion,’’ he disclosed.

He pointed out that the IGR figures are not a spike but ‘’a trend that is steady and sustainable, with even stronger performance ahead as we deepen collaboration with MDAs, stakeholders, and with the full support of His Excellency, the Governor’’.

He recalled that ‘’between 2019 and 2023, the highest annual collection this Service ever recorded was ₦59 billion in 2022 at a monthly average of about ₦4.8 billion.’’

‘’On paper, that looked like progress. But if you looked closer, as we eventually did, you’d find out that a significant portion of that revenue didn’t come from organic tax growth. ’It came from back-duty recoveries, sale of government properties and some other one-off recoveries, not a growing, breathing tax base,’’ Mr Adams had disclosed.

He noted that by early 2023, that model had done exactly what such models always eventually do: it stalled, stating that “vertical growth had become stunted, just as we feared it would.”

Mr Adams said KADIRS then had an honest and uncomfortable conversation and decided that “we could no longer keep squeezing the same familiar taxpayers a little harder each year and call it strategy”.

‘’We needed to grow horizontally, not just vertically; to expand the tax net itself, rather than simply tighten it around those already caught in it, and to stop relying on windfalls to flatter our numbers,’’ he clarified.

Mr Adams said KADIRS decided to fully digitise its processes to block leakages by introducing the PAYKADUNA portal, alongside Project C.R.A.F.T (Cross-Sector Systems for Revenue Administration and Fiscal Transparency).

‘’This gave us, for the first time, a centralised payment system for all state revenue, closing gaps that informal, cash-based collection had long allowed to thrive,’’ he added.

According to him, the Service recruited more staff ‘’ to comb the streets and expand the tax net, provided necessary working tools and facilitated promotions that had been delayed.’’

Mr Adams further said that KADIRS also ‘’provided capacity building opportunities to staff and established three additional area offices to complement the existing 34 offices for improved accessibility.’’

‘’We also strengthened partnerships beyond our own borders with institutions like the Joint Revenue Board, the Nigeria Revenue Service, and the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit, particularly around data sharing, which has been invaluable in identifying taxable activity that would otherwise have gone unseen,’’ he added.

Mr Adams, the APC running mate for the 2027 gubernatorial election, counselled that tax compliance is a function of trust.

‘’When we began, compliance across the state stood at a modest 30 per cent. Today, I am pleased to report that the compliance level has risen to approximately 65 per cent,’’ he said.

The outgoing executive chairman, however, admitted that the feat is a governance achievement and not a KADIRS achievement alone.