Financial planner, Kalu Aja has pointed to MTN Nigeria’s construction of the Onitsha-Enugu Expressway as an example of how the country’s largest corporates are funding public infrastructure through the federal government’s tax-for-credit programme, recouping costs from their tax obligations rather than waiting for the government to deliver projects.
Aja, speaking during an X Space he hosted with financial analyst, Tosin Olaseinde, said the arrangement was part of a broader pattern in which Nigeria’s largest corporates are directly building public infrastructure in addition to paying taxes.
“They’re not just paying tax revenues. They’re doing infrastructure, they’re paying individuals,” he said, noting that Dangote has built a road from Apapa into Ijora and BUA is constructing infrastructure elsewhere in the country through similar arrangements.
He put MTN’s total tax payments at N429 billion and its cumulative infrastructure spending at N1.62 trillion, covering fibre-optic networks, mobile towers, spectrum, generators, diesel, and distribution networks reaching every local government area in the country.
“In every local government area in Nigeria, there is an MTN somewhere. You’ll either find a tower, or you’re going to find someone selling recharge cards. That’s the depth and level of their contribution to Nigeria so far,” he said.
Aja argued that the combined effect of direct taxation and infrastructure delivery means corporates like MTN are funding public goods through multiple channels simultaneously.
He cited Dangote’s statement that for every one naira Dangote Industries earns, 52 kobo goes to the government in taxes, making it the largest and most compliant taxpayer in Nigeria according to the Nigeria Revenue Service.
Olaseinde, co-founder of Money Africa and the Ladda investment app, said the downstream economic impact of corporate infrastructure investment is often underestimated. She noted that the telecom sector contributed 9.19 percent of GDP in the first quarter of 2026, with MTN as a key player.
“On a retail level, it’s not just them investing in capital expenditure. It’s actually creating economic capacity, productive capacity for the Nigerian economy,” she said.
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She cited examples of businesses generating as much as N50 million per month without a physical office, running entirely on data connectivity and social media. She also pointed to fintech, remote work, and online education as sectors that depend directly on the infrastructure telecom companies have built.
“If they’re not connected, it’s not possible. We have a business with over 75,000 users because people can actually download our app using data in order to save and invest,” she said.
Aja posed a hypothetical to illustrate the scale of corporate Nigeria’s contribution, asking what would happen if these investments were removed.
“What would happen if there was no corporate Nigeria? First, the jobs would go. Then the tax revenues – that 52 kobo – gone. Fewer roads, fewer schools, fewer hospitals. It’s a massive hole nobody can fill,” he said.
He noted that GTCO has deployed 200,000 POS terminals, with each one representing at least one job and an estimated one in three people depending on the income generated by each terminal.
Olaseinde added that the presence of large corporates also shapes operational standards across the economy. She said smaller businesses observe the service levels set by companies like MTN and GTCO and apply those standards to their own operations.
“If you go to GT and they’ve got air conditioning, customer service, nice emails, when you set up your own company, you’re like, ‘I also want to be like that.’ The excellence level goes up,” she said.
The conversation formed part of a broader discussion on what corporate Nigeria has contributed to the national economy, using MTN, Dangote Cement, and GTCO as cross-sector case studies covering infrastructure, taxes, dividends, and job creation.
