Nigeria’s Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has sealed the Lagos and Abuja offices of fintech company, OPay, over allegations it violated the Nigeria Tax Act 2025.
Opay is being tasked particularly over failure to remit and pay Value Added Tax (VAT) and Companies Income Tax (CIT).
The enforcement action reportedly affected OPay’s offices in Lagos and Abuja, where officials of the tax agency placed notices sealing the premises.
The notices warned that the seals must not be removed without the authorisation of the Executive Chairman of the FIRS, indicating an ongoing compliance dispute between the fintech company and Nigerian tax authorities.
OPay, a Chinese-backed fintech platform that entered the Nigerian market in 2018, has grown rapidly and become one of the country’s most widely used digital payment services.
However, the recent enforcement move has raised broader questions about the operations of foreign technology platforms within Nigeria’s expanding digital economy.
Public policy analyst Emmanuel Adeniyi, Executive Director of the Coalition for Indigenous Digital Advancement, said the situation reflects a common regulatory pattern involving foreign tech platforms.
“The playbook is consistent. You see rapid market penetration, then a very long period of resistance whenever regulators ask questions about where money is going and who it is ultimately serving,” he said.
