The debt we refuse to pay: Why Nigeria must stop taxing its veterans

In every nation, there are groups whose contributions are visible and celebrated, and there are those whose sacrifices are carried quietly, etched into their bodies, their nerves, and their memories. Soldiers belong to the latter category. They return from service not with wealth or comfort, but with stories of danger, fragments of trauma, and bodies aged faster than their years. It is the responsibility of a grateful nation to honour such people, not merely with parades and medals, but with systems that ensure dignity long after the uniform is laid down.

Nigeria has not yet learned this lesson.

Across the country, retired military officers, men who once commanded battalions, fought insurgencies, and defended fragile communities, are slipping into poverty. Some die waiting for pension adjustments. Others battle chronic illness without support. According to a 2023 investigation by The Sun newspaper, a retired major general receives a pension valued at under $1,000 a month. Lower ranks earn far less. And many thousands of non-commissioned officers fare even worse, leaving service with pensions so limited that they cannot survive without family charity.

The Sun report detailed former senior officers living in severe distress, including a retired general battling illness while exhausting his savings. Other outlets have documented multiple protests by military retirees, some of whom blocked the Ministry of Finance to demand unpaid benefits, arrears, and entitlements stretching back years. These scenes, elderly veterans in faded fatigues holding placards and demanding what they already earned, constitute a national indictment. They expose a deeper failure. Nigeria depends on its military for survival, yet withdraws support the moment service ends.

This is not simply a welfare problem. It is a national security problem. And it demands a fundamental rethinking of how Nigeria treats its veterans, beginning with the tax system.

A Puzzle at the Heart of Nigeria’s National Priorities

Nigeria routinely grants generous tax holidays to foreign corporations, technology firms, and investors in special economic zones. It forgoes significant revenue to incentivise sectors that promise growth. Government agencies proudly advertise multi-year corporate tax exemptions to attract manufacturing plants from Asia, agribusiness firms from Europe, and service companies from America.

But the same government taxes its veterans as though they were ordinary economic actors.

Why does a country that offers tax-free status to companies that have contributed nothing to its survival refuse to extend the same dignity to the men and women who defended it?

This contradiction is more than rhetorical. It is a puzzle that reveals a misalignment of national values. Nigeria’s soldiers, many of whom fought insurgencies, quelled riots, patrolled dangerous borders, and risked death daily, received modest salaries and austere allowances during their years of service. Their pensions, even at senior levels, are insufficient to match the realities of ageing, illness, and reduced earning capacity. Many leave the armed forces with chronic injuries, PTSD, hearing loss, vision impairment, and metabolic damage accumulated over decades of physical strain.

The tax system should not worsen these burdens. It should correct them.

The Case for Tax Exemption as National Justice

Many democracies with robust veteran support systems recognise that veterans are a special category of citizens and design tax policy accordingly. In the United States, disability benefits are tax-free and many states exempt military retirees from income tax altogether. Canada treats disability compensation as non-taxable by default. Britain exempts war-related pensions and service-connected payments from income tax. Australia and Israel provide extensive fiscal protections to veterans and widows, recognising that those who bear the nation’s burdens deserve structural, not symbolic, support.

What these nations understand intuitively is what Nigeria has yet to accept.

A stable veteran population is a pillar of national resilience. An impoverished veteran population is a source of quiet instability.

Taxing Nigerian veterans is not just inequitable. It is strategically reckless, especially in a region where civil-military relations carry profound implications for democratic stability.

The Economics: Why Exemption Is Cheaper Than Neglect

Critics may argue that Nigeria cannot afford broad tax exemptions in a period of fiscal pressure. But this argument collapses quickly when examined through basic economic reasoning.

First, Nigeria’s veteran population is small relative to its tax base. The vast majority of veteran-owned businesses are micro or small enterprises whose corporate tax contributions would register as statistical noise. Even full exemption would likely reduce corporate income tax revenue by far less than one-tenth of one percent.

Second, empowered veterans produce measurable economic returns. International studies from the United States Small Business Administration and Canada’s Veterans Affairs show veteran-owned enterprises displaying higher survival rates, stronger employment stability, and more disciplined management. These characteristics translate across borders. In Nigeria, they would mean stronger local economies, higher consumption, and more resilient communities.

Third, veteran poverty is profoundly expensive. When retirees cannot afford housing, medication, or treatment, the cost shifts to public hospitals, extended families, state welfare systems, or emergency services. Preventable illnesses escalate. Families fracture. Communities absorb the destabilising effects of hardship.

It is cheaper, fiscally, socially, and morally, to exempt veterans from tax than to manage the consequences of their economic decline.

The Moral Imperative

A nation is judged not by the size of its GDP or the strength of its institutions, but by how it treats those who defended it. When retired officers gather at the gates of the Ministry of Finance to demand arrears, the symbolism is devastating. The defenders of the republic must beg for what is owed.

Tax exemption is not a handout. It is a message.

It tells the corporal who fought in Maiduguri, the sergeant who served in Liberia, the warrant officer who patrolled the Niger Delta creeks, and the general who commanded brigades.

Your country sees you. Your sacrifice matters. Your retirement will not be lived in indignity.

Some will argue that if veterans are exempted, then teachers, nurses, or other civil servants should be as well. This is a misunderstanding of the nature of military service. Soldiers alone enter a legal contract obligating them to face mortal danger at the state’s command. Soldiers alone give up fundamental freedoms of movement, of speech, and of personal autonomy during service. Soldiers alone bear a lifetime of physical and psychological burdens traceable directly to national defence.

Veteran tax exemption is not charity. It is restorative justice.

A Comprehensive Tax Justice Framework

Nigeria needs a clear and coherent Veteran Tax Justice Framework written into law. This framework should include

Zero income tax for all retired veterans.

Zero corporate tax for all veteran-owned businesses, permanently.

Zero tax on military pensions, disability benefits, and gratuities.

Zero property tax on a veteran’s primary residence.

Tax credits for healthcare and dependent education.

Automatic exemptions, not annual paperwork, to minimise administrative burden.

These reforms should not be left to ministerial goodwill or administrative discretion. They must be codified, enforceable, and insulated from political cycles.

This Is Not Charity. It Is Restorative Justice

Nigeria’s armed forces have been among the most poorly paid in the world. Their pension system is outdated, their benefits inconsistent, and their healthcare inadequate. The result is a moral debt the country has yet to acknowledge.

Veteran tax exemption does not erase that debt. But it begins to pay it.

If Nigeria is to navigate the coming decade, marked by complex security challenges, demographic pressures, and a rapidly shifting global landscape, it must build confidence not only in its institutions but in its moral centre. A nation that honours its veterans honours itself. A nation that neglects them diminishes itself.

Nigeria’s veterans defended the country in its most fragile moments. They protected elections, secured borders, confronted insurgencies, and held the line when others fled. Their bodies and minds bear the cost of the Republic.

The question before Nigeria is simple.

Will the Republic bear any of the cost in return?

I call on the President, the Honourable Minister of Defence, and the leadership of the National Assembly to treat this matter with the urgency it deserves. Comprehensive tax exemption for veterans is one of the clearest, most affordable, most morally urgent, and most strategically intelligent steps our nation can take.

Comprehensive tax exemption for veterans is one of the clearest, most affordable, most morally urgent, and most strategically intelligent steps Nigeria can take.

It is time to pay a debt long overdue.

Rear Admital Ati-John (rtd) writes from Lagos.