Connect with us

Featured

Abuja Agog As First IGP Open Weightlifting Championship Holds In November

Published

on

The maiden edition of the Inspector General of Police, IGP Open Weightlifting Championship will hold from November 8 to 12, 2021, the organisers have announced.

The competition is in collaboration with the Nigeria Weightlifting Federation, NWF.

Speaking with the Nigeria Weightlifting Federation media team in Abuja, the Caretaker Committee chairman, Nigeria Police Weightlifting Association, DSP Briggs Asigoboka said the championship is part of sporting activities the Inspector General of Police, Usman Alkali Baba is using to boost the moral of the force as well as restore the past glory when the force was synonymous with producing star athletes for the country.

DSP Briggs said the essence of the competition is, among other things, to boost the moral of the athletes in the rank and file, give them a sense of belonging and restore the past glory of sporting activities in the force as well as discover and nurture good weightlifters for the country and international competitions.

“The competition, IGP Open Weightlifting Championship, is the first edition and it will hold from November 8 to 12th, 2021.

“The whole essence of this competition is to boost the moral of our athletes and make them have a sense of belonging because when you have regular competitions, it will help them to keep fit and face the challenges ahead.

“That will also make them to measure up with their other colleagues in councils in the country. Therefore, the competition will ensure that our people are keeping fit and that they can go for other national competitions and compete against others.

“It will also serve as an avenue for us to look at prospects for competitions within the country and internationally,” she said.

She stressed optimism that the competition would be a yearly event as it is part of the vision of the IGP which is to bring sports to the front burner in the Nigerian Police Force.

“Hopefully it will be an annual competition. The IGP has the vision to see that we have regular competitions in all the associations so that everybody will be part of it.

“Apart from that, his dream is to see how we can bring Nigeria Police sports to the front burner again so that we can begin to have people in the national team as we used to have them in the past years.

“If competitions are regular, there is hope that our people will begin to feel important again compared to the past glory we had . We want to bring back the glory.

“We want to see how we can restore the gold records we had. We used to have people like Chioma Ajunwa and Sunday Bade in our national teams, always featuring.

”Regular competitions will give us the leverage and help our people to measure up in the country and by so doing take them to national teams and promote the image of the force.

“I have been given the responsibility to see how we can move our different associations to that level,” she said.

DSP Briggs further added that the first edition will concentrate on sister agencies such as the Nigerian Army, Navy, Customs, Fire Service, Road Safety, among others

She noted that invitation will be extended to nearby states – the Federal Capital Territory, Niger and Nasarawa to participate

“We are looking forward to having them join us. It is the first edition but subsequently, we hope to get everybody involved.”

The IGP Open Weightlifting Championship will feature all categories.

Continue Reading

Business

Tax Reform Bills: The Verdict of Nigerians

Published

on

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.

Continue Reading

Trending

error

Enjoy this blog? Please spread the word :)