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15-Year-Old Aisha Cries Out Over Father’s Detention At IGP’s Special Tactical Squad Abuja

Published

4 years ago

July 5, 2021

A 15-year- old Aisha Sanusi has appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari to use his good offices to order the Inspector General of Police to release her father Malam Sanusi Mohammed Inuwa who has been in the police custody under a dehumanizing condition for no just cause.

Miss Aisha wrote an open letter addressed to President Muhammadu Buhari on her Facebook page and this attracted so many comments, our reporter contacted her and heard her story.

On arrival at NICON quarters, House No:10, Sokoto State. Our reporter sought audience with the brave and devastated young girl in her early 15 and the mother who was laying down sick and could barely notice our stay. According to Aisha, trouble started on Sunday,16th of May 2021 ; able body men came looking for her father, Mal.Sanusi who happens to be a journalist ( Publisher) and business man, who publishes Daily Focus Newspaper. My father received them but they said my father was under arrest, he asked them for what offence and they said until he gets to Abuja.

They took him to Abuja by road and detained him at STS Abuja, the IGP Special Tactical Squad that specializes in catching kidnappers, armed rubbers, bandits from May 16th till 18th on the orders of DSP Hamza Galadima, who the police claimed as complainant, who had business deals with my father.

In fact, my father told me that DSP Hamza Galadima purchased 10 plots of land from his company Cowries Alliance but made a staggered payment of 8 plots beginning around October or November 2020 totaling 10 million Naira, but wants to take full possession of 10 plots instead of 8 plots he paid for.

It was at this juncture they had serious disagreement leading to DSP Hamza Galadima CSO to the IGP threatening and my father also petitioned the IGP to caution and investigate him which was published on his newspaper Daily Focus. This publication angered DSP who ordered his arrest and perpetual detention using the IGP STS division, Abuja.

My father didn’t commit any crime to warrant his detention at STS former SARS police division. As am speaking to you, he has spent more than 34 days in the cell with suspected hardened criminals because he was arrested again by the same man who led the others on Saturday, May 29 in the night. Initially, they came like kidnappers and bandits without proper identity. They men beat up my father, my uncle, my mother and myself. I was slapped more than twice, my mother pushed down on the floor, our doors shattered, properties destroyed, my uncle bundled into the car along side my father but they later released my uncle.

This has brought shame to my family, because people in the estate and around the vicinity now see my father as a criminal. My mother’s health has worsened.

I want President Buhari and other well meaning Nigerians to come to my father’s rescue. Because DSP Hamza Galadima will never be the IGP’s CSO forever, and he is using his office to dehumanize and maltreat my father. He forgot that Allah owns him and placed him in that position.

We have done everything humanly possible to secure his release but DSP Hamza Galadima refused, some of his colleagues have talked to him but he refused.

That was why I wrote to President Buhari in tears, using my Facebook page so that he will help me release my father and carry out investigation to know what really happened.

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Business

Tax Reform Bills: The Verdict of Nigerians

Published

1 week ago

March 6, 2025

The Gleamer

Ismaila Ahmad Abdullahi Ph.D

The public hearings conducted recently by the two Chambers of the National Assembly have elicited positive responses from a broad spectrum of Nigerians, cutting across regional interest groups, government agencies, civil society groups, concerned individuals, the academia, and Labour Unions, among diverse others. Contrary to a few dissensions hitherto expressed in the media, almost all the stakeholders who spoke during the week-long sessions were unanimous in their declaration that the hallowed Chambers should pass the tax reform bills after a clean-up of the grey areas.

The public hearings were auspicious for all Nigerians desirous of economic growth and fiscal responsibility. They were also a watershed moment for the Federal Inland Revenue Service, which had been upbeat about the tax reforms. Indeed, the public hearings had rekindled hope in the tenets of democracy that guarantee freedom of expression and equitable space for cross-fertilisation of ideas. Without gainsaying the fact, the tax reform bills have been unarguably about the most thought-provoking issues in Nigeria today, drawing variegated perspectives and commentaries from even unlikely quarters such as the faith-based leaders, student bodies, and trade unions, which speaks much about the importance of the bills.

In the build-up to the public hearings, not many people believed that the bills would make it to the second reading, much less the public hearings. Even the Northern stakeholders who seemed unlikely to support the passage of the bills have softened their stance and have given valuable suggestions that would enrich the substance of the bills. The Arewa Consultative Forum came to the public hearings well-prepared with a printed booklet that addressed their concerns. It concluded with an advisory that the bills should be “Well planned, properly communicated, strategically implemented and ample dialogue and political consensus allowed for the reforms to be accepted.”

The concerns of ACF ranged from the composition of the proposed Nigeria Revenue Service Board as contained in Part 111, Section 7 of the bill, the unlimited Presidential power to exempt/wave tax payment as proposed in Section 75(1) of the bill, the family income or inheritance tax as contained in Part 1, Section 4(3) of the bill, to the issues around development levy and VAT. On the development levy, the ACF stated that unless the Federal Government is considering budgetary funding for TETFUND, NASENI and NITDA, it does not see the “wisdom behind the plan to replace (them) with NELFUND”.

The position of the North was equally reinforced by the Supreme Council for Shariah in Nigeria, Northern Elders Forum, Kano State Government, Professor Auwalu Yadudu, and the FCT Imams. Like the ACF, these stakeholders lent their respective voices to the Section on the Inheritance Tax in Part 1 of the bill and the use of the term ‘ecclesiastical’, which, in their views, undermines certain religious rights and beliefs. The Kano State Government, represented by Mahmud Sagagi, affirmed that “we support tax modernisation” but cautioned that “we must ensure that this process does not come at the expense of states’ constitutional rights and economic stability”. Professor Auwalu Yadudu, a constitutional law professor, drew attention to the use of the ‘supremacy clause’ and cautioned that the repeated use of “notwithstanding” in the bills would undermine the supremacy of the Nigerian constitution if passed as such.

Other stakeholders that made contributions at the sessions included the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas, Fiscal Responsibility Commission, Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission, Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria, Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria, Nigeria Customs Service, and a host of others. While most of their concerns bordered on technical issues requiring fine-tuning, they were unanimous in their support for the bills. They aligned with the position of the Executive Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service, Zacch Adedeji, Ph.D. and the Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, Mr Taiwo Oyedele, which is that the extant tax laws and fiscal regulations are obsolete necessitating reforms aimed at creating a fair and equitable tax and fiscal space to grow Nigeria’s economy.

In one of the sessions, Dr Zaach Adedeji expounded on the criss-cross of trade activities in the Free Trade Zone whereby companies misuse tax waivers as exporters to sell their goods or services in the Customs Area at an amount usually less than the price the operators in the Customs Area who pay VAT and other taxes sell theirs thereby disrupting business transactions. This way, the operators in the Free Trade Zone shortchange the government in paying their due taxes by circumventing extant regulations, which are inimical to the economy’s growth.

Overall, the presentations were forthright, foresighted, and helpful in elucidating the issues contained in the bills. According to the statistics read out at the end of the hearings at the Senate, 75 stakeholders were invited, 65 made submissions, and 61 made presentations. At the House of Representatives 53 stakeholders made presentations. By all means, this is a fair representation. Given the presentations, it is evident that the National Assembly has gathered enough materials to guide its deliberations on the bills. As we look forward to the passage of the bills, we commend the leadership of the National Assembly for their unwavering commitment to making the bills see the light of the day.

Abdullahi is the Director of the Communications and Liaison Department, FIRS.

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