By Ngozi Onyeakusi—The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) yesterday disclosed that it generated revenues to the tune of N4.2 trillion in the first nine months of this year. The Chairman of FIRS, Mr. Mohammed Nami, who spoke when he appeared on Arise News Channel, THISDAY’s broadcast arm, stated that but for the challenges in the oil and gas sector, the organisation would have posted N7 trillion revenue by now, explaining that the cut by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) had clearly impacted the country negatively. However, he stressed that Nigeria was diversifying its economy away from the commodity, explaining that out of the collection, only N950 billion accrued from oil and gas taxes. A THISDAY’s check showed that in 2017, FIRS generated N4 trillion taxes, representing 82.38 per cent of government set target of N4.89 trillion and a 20 per cent improvement on the N3.3 trillion collected in 2016. Actual revenue collection for 2015 stood at N3.7 trillion, with N2.4 trillion coming from non-oil receipts, while out of the sum of N3.3 trillion collected in 2016, N2.14 trillion came from non-oil receipts.