2027: Adeola vows to capture Ogun share of corporate taxes lost to Lagos

The All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship candidate in Ogun State, Senator Olamilekan Adeola, popularly known as Yayi, has vowed to aggressively pursue and recover corporate taxes and revenue generated by industrial entities operating within the state but remitting their top-level executives’ taxes to Lagos State.

Adeola, who currently represents Ogun West Senatorial District, made the declaration during an interactive session with journalists at the Ogun State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) Secretariat in Abeokuta, as he outlined his political agenda for the 2027 governorship election.

Addressing newsmen on his economic strategy on Friday, the lawmaker expressed concern that despite Ogun State being recognised as Nigeria’s primary industrial hub, its internally generated revenue (IGR) fails to reflect its extensive industrial base due to structural tax leakages.

He attributed the disparity to the location of corporate headquarters, where manufacturing plants and operations are based in Ogun State while corporate headquarters, along with high-earning directors and senior managers, remain situated in Lagos.

“Many of these industries establish themselves in our state but take their head offices to Lagos. By doing so, the return on investment from establishing in my state cannot be compared with what it should be, because the top echelon, all the managers and directors are in Lagos, and their taxes are paid to Lagos,” Adeola said.

Comparing the fiscal metrics between both states, the senator noted that Lagos achieved a ₦1.6 trillion revenue benchmark while Ogun State continues to lag behind, estimating that over 30 per cent of Lagos’ corporate tax yields originate from economic activities anchored in Ogun State.

He insisted that his administration would no longer rely on traditional, delayed inter-state monthly tax reconciliation processes for cross-border workers, demanding instead that corporate entities set up regional executive offices within a newly designated Central Business District in Abeokuta.

“I am not saying you should take your head office out of Lagos, but in my new Central Business District here in Abeokuta, come and establish your regional office so that I can have some of your managers and even an Executive Director here. I strongly feel that more than 30 percent of that revenue from Lagos is my money, and I have to collect it,” he stated.

Beyond corporate income tax collection, Adeola also pledged to clamp down on uncoordinated federal mining activities within Ogun, asserting that external commercial operators frequently extract the state’s solid mineral resources using federal permits without direct financial equity flowing to the state government.

On employment and local labour laws, the candidate criticised major industrial complexes for relying on non-resident labour forces and casual positions for indigenous workers, promising to institute a mandatory local content policy requiring firms to offer first right of refusal and managerial quotas to qualified Ogun residents.