Subair, Vanguard’s Public Icon of the Year

Kehinde Bamigbetan

For doubling the internally generated revenue of Lagos State during his tenure as the chairman of the Lagos State Internal Revenue Service, Vanguard Newspapers Limited has named Ayo Subair the public icon of the year at its annual Personality of the Year Awards.

The event, which was held on Friday at the prestigious Convention Hall of Eko Hotel and Suites, was chaired by the Chairman of Access Bank, Mrs, Ayo Awosika and witnessed by the chairman and founder of the national newspaper, Uncle Sam Amuka.

The citation written by Sunkanmi Akoni, the newspaper’s correspondent who has covered Alausa, the seat of power in Lagos for over 15 years, described  Subair as “ the magic wand in Lagos tax revolution”:

PRIOR to his appointment in 2016 under the administration of the immediate past Lagos State Governor, Akinwunmi Ambode, internally generated revenue, IGR, by the Lagos Internal Revenue Service, LIRS, hovered around N240 billion, but with his astute knowledge and experience in accounting and taxation, the Executive Chairman, Mr Ayodele Subair, has increased revenue generation to N427 billion, nearly doubling the initial revenue at the start of his tenure.

Subair turned over the fortunes of the revenue agency by implementing several measures to expand the tax net in terms of payers and items taxed.

In 2019, he introduced an electronic tax returns system enabling many taxpayers to avoid the impediments that the bureaucratic process in tax offices posed and pay their taxes in the convenience of their homes and offices.

To reduce tax evasion, he launched the whistleblower programme in 2022 urging members of the public, organizations and officials tasked with the assignment to expose and bring to justice cases of evasion, misconduct and illegal operations.

This voluntary system was strengthened internally by setting up a unit of intelligence officials to build a database and profile cases of big defaulters and ensure that the state does not lose its deserved share of their incomes.

And to bring the informal sector fully into the tax net, he launched the Ibile Hub, a system that profiles economic actors operating without formal records by assisting them to pay taxes reflecting their income. This had been a hard nut for the LIRS to crack since inception. The 233 per cent increase in revenue collection achieved by the Hub initiative set Subair on a different pedestal as a taxation professional who knows his onions.

Subair has also been lucky with the fall of a few low-hanging fruits. First is the success of Lagos State in winning the long-drawn case for the implementation of the Hotel Occupancy and Restaurant Consumption Tax law which confirmed the right of the state to charge consumption charges in hotels. Coming with the installation of automatic devices which enable the tax authorities to know the amount received by hotels and restaurants, it is destined to bring into the state’s purse more revenue as the coverage expands.

Second is the adoption of the state-wide service charter by the LIRS in August 2021 awakening the staff to their responsibilities to the public, particularly the taxpayers and elevating management values to promote efficiency.

With these initiatives, watchers of Subair at the LIRS were not surprised that he was able to raise the state’s internally generated revenue from N240 billion he met to N427 billion today.

Before his current position, Subair made waves as the pioneering director of the Lagos State Lotteries Board demonstrating immense capacity from a 34-year career in accounting at top firms including Price Waterhouse. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the Metropolitan University of Manchester, United Kingdom and a Master’s in Business Administration from the University of Lagos.

He is a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria, ICAN and a member of the Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria, CITN.