Mr Muhammad, is a well-trained Tax, Accounting and Management Professional with highly rated qualifications and professional practicing licenses from relevant professional bodies. He has over three decades of practical working experience in Auditing, Tax Management and Advisory and Management Services to clients in the Banking, Manufacturing Services and Public Sectors as well as Non-Profit organizations.
Nami is an expert in rendering advisory support services to investors in respect of new businesses. He has also continuously rendered outsourced services to clients in both trading, service and manufacturing sectors of the economy.
Mr. Muhammad Nami attended Bayero University, Kano, and Ahmadu Bello University where he obtained a Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology (1991) and a Masters of Business Administration in 2004, respectively. He is a Fellow of Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria, Association of National Accountants of Nigeria and Associate Member of the Nigerian Institute of Management (Chartered), Chartered Institute of Stockbrokers (CIS) as well as an Associate Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria.
He started his career with PKF in 1993 and rose to the position of a Senior Consultant in charge of Tax management and advisory services. He was also the Managing Consultant of Manam Professional Services (Chartered Tax Practioners and Advisers) based in Kaduna, Abuja and Minna from October 2018 to December 2019.
As the Executive Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) Mr. Nami was also automatically the Chairman of the Joint Tax Board (JTB). He is the immediate past Chairman of the African Tax Administrators Forum (ATAF). He was also the President of the Commonwealth Association of Tax Administrators (CATA). These roles invariably conferred on him the need to contribute to the growth and development of Nigeria, Africa and the commonwealth nations.
As a go-getter and an ingenious leader, he has since proved bookmakers right that he was more than equal to the task as the Executive Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service. The reforms he implemented at FIRS attest to his dexterity, visionary leadership and patriotism. Under his visionary leadership, the FIRS in 2022 achieved an unprecedented revenue collection of N10.1 trillion, which is the highest tax collection ever made in the history of the country.
The performance this year, 2023, under Nami, was nothing but spectacular. The N5.5 trillion total tax revenue collection between January and June, representing 103.77% of the target for the period, was more than the N4.95 trillion the agency collected in the entire 2020 fiscal year. It is only N900 billion less than the N6.4 trillion collected in the whole of 2021. For the first eight months of the year, when Nami was still in charge, it had already collected N8.3 trillion, representing 82% of the total collection for 2022, with the whole of four months of the year still left to go.
When Nami assumed office in December 2019, he promised to raise the country’s Tax-To-GDP ratio from 6% to 10% in four years. He achieved a Tax-to-GDP ratio of 10.86% within two (2) years (i.e. as at 31st December 2021). He was confident to generate over N13 trillion and poised to achieve a Tax-to-GDP ratio of well over 14% by the end of his four years tenure (i.e. 31st December, 2023.)
Apart from the unprecedented surge in the tax revenue figures of FIRS, the implementation of Nami’s reforms greatly improved the output of the agency and specifically resulted in the significant reduction in the turn-around time for tax operations; receipt of ISO certification for some of its processes; improvement in voluntary tax compliance; and successful alteration of the tax revenue mix in favour of non-oil taxes.
Put together, all these achievements have placed FIRS in a position where it now contributes over 70% of the revenue being shared monthly by FAAC.
Today, Nami is renowned for the optimal deployment of technology as well as the introduction of unprecedented reforms in Nigeria’s tax administration including data mining and strategic intelligence gathering for improved revenue generation.
As a result of his innovative leadership, he has attracted many awards to the FIRS and himself. In October 2022, the former President, His Excellency, Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR, conferred on him Excellence in Public Service Award for fiscal reforms at FIRS. He also bagged the LEADERSHIP Newspaper Year 2022 Public Servant Award, the BusinessDay Newspaper “Excellence in Public Service Award 2022”, the Daily Independent Newspaper “Public Sector Icon of the Year 2022” and the Al-Jazirah Newspaper “Africa’s Public Servant of the Year 2019 – 2022”.
In May 2023, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) named Mr. Nami as the winner of its coveted Merit Award for the year 2023.
Nami’s selection as The Top10 Magazine’s Man of the Year 2023 is in recognition of the numerous records he set and other accomplishments recorded by FIRS under his leadership as the Executive Chairman of the agency.
