Shade Omoniyi: How AbdulRazaq’s Right Choice Changed Kwara Revenue Story

How the right leadership, the right appointment and the right reforms turned revenue administration into an engine of development By Ademola Adedoyin Today, as the imposing and iconic Kwara Revenue House rises majestically in Ilorin and is unveiled to the public, it is tempting to see only a magnificent edifice of concrete, glass and steel. But the real story of the building is much bigger than its architecture. The Kwara Revenue House is, in many respects, a physical manifestation of an institutional transformation that has been unfolding quietly but relentlessly since October 2019. And at the centre of that story is Mrs. Shade Omoniyi, Executive Chairman of the Kwara State Internal Revenue Service (KW-IRS). It is also a story that says something important about leadership: when the right person is placed in the right position, given the right mandate and supported by political leadership, institutions can change—and change dramatically. That is perhaps one of the more consequential decisions Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq made at the beginning of his administration: choosing Shade Omoniyi to lead the State’s revenue administration. The governor did not merely appoint a revenue collector. He appointed a reformer with private-sector experience, banking and financial-sector exposure, technological understanding and the temperament to build systems. The results, six years and counting later, are increasingly difficult to ignore. From Revenue Collection to Revenue Administration When Omoniyi assumed office on October 1, 2019, the challenge before her was not simply to collect more money. The bigger challenge was to change the architecture and culture of revenue administration. That meant moving away from an essentially transactional approach to a modern system driven by data, technology, compliance, transparency, efficiency and taxpayer convenience. It meant asking a fundamental question: How can Kwara collect more without necessarily taxing its people more? The answer has been a combination of widening the tax net, improving compliance, plugging leakages, digitising processes, restructuring the institution and making the taxpayer a more central part of the revenue equation. The numbers tell part of the story. KW-IRS records show internally generated revenue rising from ₦30.65 billion in 2019 to ₦92.19 billion in 2025—an increase of roughly 201 per cent. The trajectory is particularly significant because it was not a straight-line journey. The COVID-19 shock pushed IGR down to about ₦19.62 billion in 2020. From there, however, the Service rebuilt steadily: ₦26.96 billion in 2021; ₦35.76 billion in 2022; ₦56.42 billion in 2023; ₦69.19 billion in 2024; and ₦92.19 billion in 2025. That is not merely revenue growth. It is evidence of a revenue system that has progressively acquired greater capacity. The Technology Revolution Perhaps the most important aspect of the Omoniyi years is that the transformation has not been built principally around the creation of new taxes. It has been built around systems. Project Phoenix became the flagship of KW-IRS’s digital transformation, producing multiple operational modules designed to automate revenue administration. The Self-Service Portal brought a range of taxpayer services online, including taxpayer identification, assessments, returns, payments, payment history and electronic Tax Clearance Certificates. Electronic payment channels, POS deployment, vehicle-management systems and other digital interventions progressively reduced the dependence on manual processes. This matters because modern taxation is ultimately a data business. The more accurately a government knows who should pay, what they should pay, when they should pay and whether they have paid, the less room there is for leakage. KW-IRS also embarked on extensive taxpayer-data cleansing and database consolidation, including the reported cleaning of more than 140,000 individual and corporate taxpayer records. The result has been an increasingly data-driven revenue administration system. Building An Institution, Not Just Collecting Money Omoniyi’s achievement is perhaps best understood in the context of institution-building. The Service restructured its organisational architecture, streamlined directorates and departments, expanded its operational footprint and increased the number of area offices. From five area offices, KW-IRS expanded to 13, taking revenue administration closer to taxpayers. There was also a deliberate emphasis on taxpayer service, stakeholder engagement, public enlightenment and voluntary compliance. This is important because a modern tax authority cannot survive by enforcement alone. People must increasingly understand that taxation is not simply money extracted by government; it is part of the social contract that finances roads, schools, healthcare, security, infrastructure and public institutions. That philosophy has informed KW-IRS’s engagement with schools, businesses, professional bodies, government agencies, communities and other stakeholders. The Revenue House: A Building With A Message Which brings us back to the magnificent structure being unveiled today. The Kwara Revenue House is not simply a headquarters. It is a statement about what revenue administration has become—and what it is expected to become. When construction was flagged off in 2023, Omoniyi explained that the vision was driven partly by the need to bring the Service’s workforce together under one roof, improve staff welfare, strengthen interdepartmental collaboration and enhance operational efficiency. The building therefore represents the institutional side of the transformation. For years, revenue administration in many places has been associated with crowded offices, manual paperwork, queues and cumbersome processes. The new Revenue House projects an entirely different image: a modern, integrated and technology-enabled tax administration institution. Governor AbdulRazaq himself described the building as a strategic investment in the future of Kwara, linking it not merely to revenue collection but to institutional strengthening, public service delivery and sustainable development. That distinction is important. Revenue is not the destination. Revenue is the fuel. Development is the destination. Governor’s Bet On The Right Person There is also a lesson here for political leadership. Governors are often judged by the roads they build, the schools they renovate, the hospitals they commission and the physical projects they leave behind. But some of the most consequential decisions are made quietly—in the appointment of people to institutions that do not always command the same public attention. Governor AbdulRazaq’s decision to appoint Shade Omoniyi to lead KW-IRS was one such decision. And when her first tenure ended, he reappointed her in October 2023 for a second and final tenure. That reappointment itself is revealing. It suggests that the governor considered continuity in revenue administration sufficiently important to retain the person who had overseen the transformation. The Governor provided the political backing and the required leadership that made it possible for Mrs Omoniyi to showcase her competencies. And KW-IRS became the vehicle through which the strategy was executed. It is difficult to tell the story of one without acknowledging the other. From Collection To Cost Control Another less glamorous but highly consequential part of the transformation has been cost management. KW-IRS has reported savings of more than ₦6 billion through contract reviews, price verification, cost controls and changes in the way consultant commissions were handled. That money matters. Every naira saved from inefficient collection arrangements is effectively additional fiscal space available to the State. Indeed, when the Revenue House project was flagged off, Omoniyi explained that the Service had moved away from the old practice of paying consultants based on total collections, instead linking payments to actual services rendered and captured within the Service’s systems. That is the less visible side of revenue reform: it is not only about collecting more; it is also about losing less. A Culture Of Continuous Reform The transformation has also been institutional. KW-IRS has maintained its ISO certifications and positioned itself as a reference point for peer learning among other State Internal Revenue Services. The Joint Tax Board has recognised Omoniyi’s long service and contributions, while KW-IRS has hosted officials from other states seeking to learn from its experience in automation, voluntary compliance and revenue administration. This is perhaps one of the clearest signs that the story has moved beyond Kwara. An institution becomes a model not merely when it collects money, but when other institutions begin asking: How did you do it? What The Rankings Really Say There has been understandable excitement around Kwara’s rise in national revenue and fiscal-performance rankings. Kwara State, under Omoniyi’s leadership of KW-IRS, has maintained a top-tier position while dramatically increasing the volume of internally generated revenue, while also improving its performance on other fiscal indicators. The State’s IGR has grown from roughly ₦30.65 billion in 2019 to ₦92.19 billion in 2025. But beyond raw IGR, the 2025 BudgIT State of States data put Kwara among Nigeria’s leading States on fiscal performance measures, its 2024 IGR-to-total-revenue ratio was 21.76 percent, placing it fourth in that particular table among the 36 States and FCT. IGR per capital under the Phillips Consulting States Performance Index placed the State in the fifth position ranking among the States of the Federation. That is the transformation. The Human Side Of The Numbers But institutions are ultimately built by people. Omoniyi’s tenure has therefore also involved an emphasis on staff development, welfare, professional capacity and organisational culture. A revenue authority cannot be expected to deliver a twenty-first-century service with a twentieth-century workforce. Technology may provide the platform, but people operate the system. This is why the new Revenue House matters beyond its physical beauty. It brings people, technology and processes together in a purpose-built environment designed around the future rather than the past. The Bigger Kwara Story There is a larger lesson in the KW-IRS experience. For decades, many Nigerian states have struggled with a fundamental fiscal problem: heavy dependence on allocations from the Federation Account while their enormous local economic potential remains inadequately captured. Kwara’s experience demonstrates what can happen when revenue administration is treated as a strategic institution rather than merely a collection agency. It requires political will. It requires technology. It requires data. It requires discipline. It requires taxpayer engagement. And above all, it requires leadership. Shade Omoniyi’s tenure has provided a practical demonstration of that philosophy. The new Revenue House is therefore more than a building. It is the brick-and-mortar expression of a digital, institutional and cultural transformation that has taken place inside KW-IRS. And The Journey Continues… Yet perhaps the most important thing about this story is that it is unfinished. ₦92.19 billion is a milestone, not an endpoint. The technology will continue to evolve. The taxpayer base will continue to expand. New economic activities will emerge. Compliance challenges will change. Artificial intelligence and data analytics will increasingly redefine tax administration. The real test of the KW-IRS transformation will therefore not simply be what has been achieved between 2019 and today, but whether the institution has become strong enough to continue delivering long after today’s ceremonies are forgotten. That is the ultimate test of institutional leadership. And that is why Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq’s choice of Shade Omoniyi deserves to be viewed within the larger context of public-sector reform. He chose a professional to lead a professional institution. He gave her the political backing to reform it. She brought technology, structure, discipline and a performance culture to the task. And the numbers—and now the building—tell their own story. Today, as the doors of the Kwara Revenue House open, the State is not merely commissioning an edifice. It is unveiling a symbol. A symbol of a revenue service that has moved from collection to administration; from manual processes to digital systems; from fragmented operations to greater integration; and from seeing the taxpayer merely as a source of revenue to recognising the taxpayer as a partner in development. That, ultimately, is the Shade Omoniyi story. And perhaps the most enduring lesson is a simple one: The right person in the right place, backed by the right leadership, can turn an institution around—and when that institution is responsible for the resources that power government, the impact can reverberate across an entire State. *Adedoyin, Journalist and Communication Strategist, is the Otunba Onigegewura of Esieland