If you wanted to design a system to enable corruption, you would make it impossible to track money. You would create multiple accounts in different places, ensure nobody has a complete view of the finances, and make sure there is no single point of accountability. You would, in essence, recreate Nigeria’s government banking structure before 2015.
The beauty of the Treasury Single Account is that it does the opposite. It takes away the hiding places. Every naira that comes into government must pass through a single gateway. Every transaction leaves a footprint. You can no longer move money in the shadows because there are no shadows left.
This is why the TSA faces resistance from certain quarters. It is not because the system does not work. It is precisely because it does work. When you close the loopholes through which public funds used to leak, you inevitably upset the people who were benefiting from those leaks.
Consider how things used to operate. Revenue-generating agencies would collect money, deposit it in their own accounts, and remit to government whatever they deemed appropriate. There was no real oversight because there was no visibility. If the treasury did not know you had collected the money, they could not ask for it.
The TSA, which was set up with the help of Remita, disrupted this arrangement completely. Now, collection and remittance happen in real time. The central treasury sees everything. You cannot simply decide to keep government money because it is convenient or because nobody is watching. Someone is always watching.
Some call this intrusive. I call it appropriate. Public funds are meant for public purposes, not for the discretionary use of officials. The fact that the TSA makes it harder to divert resources is not a weakness; it is the system functioning exactly as intended.
We have seen agencies that historically contributed pittance to the federation account suddenly posting substantial remittances. This was not because they discovered new revenue streams. It was because the old escape routes were blocked. When you cannot hide the money, you have to account for it.
This is the kind of transparency that builds public trust. Citizens need to know that when they pay taxes, fees, and levies, that money is actually going where it is supposed to go. The TSA provides that assurance. It proves that government can be held accountable, that public resources can be managed with integrity.
It would be naïve to ignore the reality that some interests quietly prefer the old arrangement. For those who thrived in that environment, the TSA is not merely a system; it is a constraint. But Nigeria cannot afford a return to an era where public money moved in shadows and accountability depended on goodwill rather than architecture. The choice before us is clear: consolidate and strengthen the reforms that made corruption harder to hide, or risk sliding back into a past where discretion replaced discipline. Corruption thrives in opacity.
Opeyemi Oke, Public Analyst, Lagos.
