A government that signs secret tax deals with France, an aggressive, rapacious and parasitic foreign entity, cannot, in good conscience, ask the citizen to declare their earnings or give their hard-earned money. A government that cannot convincingly give an account of how it spends oil revenue, loans collected and what accrues to it from subsidy removal, will certainly not become transparent and honest with people’s money.
The furore, hysteria and the sustained public discourse surrounding the new tax law and the memorandum of understanding signed between the Federal Inland Revenue Service and France are not unexpected. Taxation is a very touchy and sensitive issue anywhere in the world even in countries where the governments are known to be prudent, altruistic, transparent, accountable and use public funds to better and improve the lives of the people which is clearly not the case in Nigeria where corrupt and unscrupulous elected officials act like god and feel they are not answerable to the people who voted them into office.
While the new tax law that is expected to take effect next year has received massive pushback and vehement opposition from the citizenry with the government working assiduously to convince them that it is in their best interest even when available details of the said law and established facts say otherwise, the government announced last week that it has signed memorandum of understanding with France to ‘strengthen bilateral cooperation and advance the digital transformation’, further compounding an already disturbing situation.
The hullabaloo that has greeted the announced tax collaboration MoU signed with France is less about the deal itself and more about the government’s refusal to release or publish the full details of what it signed on behalf of Nigerians. This has further fueled suspicions and doubts about the real government’s plan and intent, intensifying and amplifying opposition to the tax law and strengthening people’s resolve to oppose it.
While opposition to the tax law continues to mount, shocking information that does nothing but confirm the doubts of those who questioned the logic and sensibility of the tax law and the sincerity of those who drafted and promulgated it came to public knowledge. On Wednesday, the House of Representatives Member Hon. Abdulsammad Dasuki (PDP-Sokoto) alleged that the gazetted tax reform laws are totally different from the versions passed by the National Assembly.
For instance, 64-1 of the tax administration law showed a glaring difference between what was passed by the National Assembly and what was gazetted by the federal government. Section 64-1 of the tax administration law passed into law by the House of Representatives reads thus “…the tax authority shall have the power to investigate or cause an investigation to be conducted to ascertain any violation of any tax law, whether or not such violation has been reported to the relevant tax authority.”
While the official gazette of the same law reads “…the tax authority shall have the power to investigate or cause an investigation to be conducted to ascertain any violation of any tax law, whether or not such violation has been reported to the relevant tax authority and shall also have the power to arrest any person suspected of committing such violations through relevant law enforcement agency.”
This alteration and switching of the passed law with a different version that has little or no similarity in provisions and stipulations with the passed version by the National Assembly is not only an impeachable offence but a threat to our democracy. One would have thought that a government that has struggled with positively shaping public perception and have repeatedly suffered reputational damage and public relations crisis will be wary of taking any action or decision that further sullies its image and tarnishes its already battered reputation. But that is not the case. It is almost as if the current government enjoys and relishes the unending negative views and unpleasant assessments of itself from the people. This indifference towards people’s perception of it is not because it does not crave genuine likeness or desire kind, savoury, pleasant and satisfying feedback from the people, but because it does not see these things as something that is important to its grand plot to consolidate power.
It must be said that the only reason the executive has the effrontery and temerity to tamper with and swap the tax administration law is that it is aware that it can get away with practically anything, including murder. Under normal circumstances and in ideal democracy, the revelation by honourable Dasuki should be enough to commence an investigation that will ultimately trigger an impeachment proceeding but we all know that is not happening, a camel would pass through the eye of a needle before the current crop of lawmakers, who are nothing more than lapdogs and plaint appendages of the president, would even mull let alone initiate an activate impeachment clause.
With the revelation of Dasuki, the conscientious critics and opponents of the tax law, who consider it as nothing more than a dubious attempt by a shady and uninspiring government to fleece a struggling, much-tried and long-suffering populace of the little they have left, have now been vindicated. Nigerians are not altogether against paying tax or giving the government a glimpse into their finances and spending habit but doing so to a government that has not shown any appreciable level of accountability and transparency in its management of the nation’s limited resources and has become synonymous with impunity, recklessness, opacity, indiscretion and extravagance is what unsettles them and they are fighting against.
A government that signs secret tax deals with France, an aggressive, rapacious and parasitic foreign entity, cannot, in good conscience, ask the citizen to declare their earnings or give their hard-earned money. A government that cannot convincingly give an account of how it spends oil revenue, loans collected and what accrues to it from subsidy removal, will certainly not become transparent and honest with people’s money.
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