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THE JIMOH IJEGBAI, I KNOW, AND THE TRUTH HE TOLD US

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By Osakwe Aibuedefe Akugbe

Ordinarily, Hon. Jimoh Ijegbai would have passed for an honest and stable man, but his recent utterances and actions, claiming to be one of the Edo North Leaders, have left so much to be desired in a man who, on his own, had accused the Governor of Edo state of corruption and today is seen as one of the hailers of the same man.

Jimoh Ijegbai, before he worked with the Governor, was the chairman of Owan East Local Government before he was appointed to serve as commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy affairs in the first tenure of Governor Godwin Obaseki’s administration, and later, he became the Commissioner for Education in the same administration.

Hon Jimoh Ijegbai was suddenly relieved from the Edo state EXCO as a commissioner in what was made to appear as a minor cabinet reshuffle. This action by the Governor did not go well with Mr. Ijegbai, who vehemently relayed his unpalatable experience with Gov. Godwin Obaseki.  According to Ijegbai, the Governor of being unfair to him with his removal as a commissioner of education after he had coughed out the sum of Three Hundred and Fifty Million Naira (N350million) from the Ministry of Education as a donation to Governor Godwin Obaseki’s second term election in 2020.

Ijegbai had lamented that despite his benevolence, the most arrogant, wicked, and ungrateful thing Governor Obaseki could reward him with was his removal from office and the subsequent deployment of Dr. Joan Oviawe, a close ally of the Governor to oversee the Ministry because the Governor needed someone else to help him monitor the diversion of the donor funds coming into the Ministry.

Jimoh Ijegbai further alleged that Dr. Joan, whom he suspected to be having romantic affairs with Obaseki, prevented him as commissioner from nominating the SUBEB secretary from the Ministry, which has always been the norm, and boastfully stated that he would petition the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to investigate Governor Obaseki and Dr. Joan’s fraudulent activities at SUBEB after his tenure as the Governor of the State.

So far, investigation reveals that the worst and most appalling issue is the fact that the Edo State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), which was previously managed by Dr. Joan Oviawe, still deliberately owe a lot of her contractors to date and vowed never to pay the contractors for reasons best known to the Governor and Dr. Oviawe.

SUBEB, which operates under a counterpart fund jointly financed by the Universal Basic Education Board and the different state governments, is supposed to have the funds readily available in an account before jobs are awarded, but in the case of Edo State, the funds cannot be accounted for hence the delay in the payment of the contractors.

While we have been able to track the details of all transactions and the personal conversations, we await the response of Jimoh Ijegbai, the former commissioner, as we dig further into the Seventy-Five Million Dollar ($75m) scandal currently rocking the Ministry of Education and how the funds are currently being diverted.

After a forensic audit, we shall invite the EFCC to check the records of the Ministry and SUBEB to see the financial mess perpetrated by Ijegbai during his tenure as a commissioner of education and those who conspired with him.

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Tax Reform Bills: The Verdict of Nigerians

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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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