The school will be 30 this year. My late mother started it in 1996. She ran it for like three years before she passed on. I was doing another business then. But I was also doing it part-time with her. I was teaching – freelancing stuff. Later on, I picked up an interest. I went back to school to do a postgraduate Diploma in Education at the University of Lagos so that I could equip myself with enough skills and knowledge to manage the school.
To the glory of God, we have been doing well. The school is located in Ikotun. I won’t call it a small business. I will just say we are operating on a medium scale for now, and we are trusting that it will grow bigger and bigger over the years.
I have always loved children, even up till now, because I still work with children. I love grooming them, sharing my knowledge and experience with them and above all, just caring for them. That was what actually prompted me.
I never wanted my mom’s legacy to just go down the drain because I knew at that time she had great passion. After all, she was a teacher all her life. In those days, when they started with grade 2, that was where she started, and gradually, she climbed the ladder. After she had all of us, she went to the University of Lagos to study Computer Science Education and Mathematics Education. She had a real passion and zeal for education.
I didn’t want that to just go to waste. So, I picked it up, and today, I’m not regretting that I put my feet into the shoes she left behind.
Over the years, we have been faced with lots of unexplained multiple taxation. It hasn’t been fun. The fact that we are located in an area that is full of low-income earners makes it really difficult for us to just hike fees. So, we charge as little as possible. Even up till now, we’re still struggling with the income we get, and we still have to pay a reasonable amount to staff so that they can have a living wage. We are struggling to make ends meet, struggling to manage the property, and the government is still taxing us in various ways.
The local government will come, they will charge for this, they will charge for that. At times, they will threaten to lock you up or lock up the school.
We do a lot of payments, business premises, land use charges, so many. But I’m happy about the new tax reform. It’s going to really help a lot of people who are in the low-income bracket. I’m really happy about that. It’s going to help businesses grow.
At the end of last year, I was surprised when I got a bill from LIRS that I should pay close to ₦800,000 as a director’s assessment. I said, “What am I earning? Why should I do this?” They said, “Some people got some information about the school, blah, blah, blah.”
Why should we be basing my tax assessments on people’s assumptions? At the end of the day, because I needed to do the payments so that I’ll be able to do my filing at the beginning of this year, I had to cough up a large amount. I couldn’t afford to pay for everything. At least I had to cough up a reasonable amount to be paid to Lagos state.
But I promised myself that it would not happen again. The next time they bring that kind of bill to me, I will prove to them that you are free to come to the school, come and count on headcount, check our salary, check everything we’ve done, look at our expenditure, look at our income, and tell me why I should be paying so much as director’s tax. The kind of profit I’m not making, you’re asking me to pay it.
When my mom started the school, it was a different story at that time. I think life was easier then. She started with ₦1,850 per term. So the kind of school fees regime I met, I was like, “God, this woman is a charitable human being. Why would she have started with this?” So, it’s been a big challenge for us to be able to raise the fees because of the area the school is located. And there is nothing we can do about that. You only operate where your property is situated.
The advice I would give a person having the interest or the zeal of starting a school is that you need to earn your skills, get enough knowledge, certifications in education that you need, because if you don’t have it, you can’t give it.
If possible, don’t start on too low a scale because jacking it up might be a big challenge in the future. Don’t start with something that will not allow you to pay your teachers well, because if your teachers are not paid well, you are sitting on a ticking time bomb. Like I do tell my educators every time I meet with them, you are the backbone of this school. Without them, there can’t be any school. I try to encourage them, make sure that their welfare is my top priority. Above all, you should be ready to face the challenges.
As narrated by: Aderonke Adesina (Ikotun, Lagos).
This snippet is published as part of the series, The Art of Taxing Poverty.
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