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Any Nigerian Above 50 Years Eyeing Presidency Should Forget It – Arewa Youths

Published

4 years ago

February 1, 2021

The President of the Arewa Youth Consultative Forum, (AYCF) Yerima Shettima, has told Nigerians who are above the age of 50 to forget about running for the presidency in 2023.

Shettima noted that the aged ones had completely failed the country since they took over governance from the founding fathers and had brought perpetual hardship of all kinds to Nigerians.

Speaking in Kaduna, he said, “we refused to harness our human and natural resources and put them on the right track for us to be very productive, rather, we only count on the number every day on one story or the other.

“It is sad and unfortunate today that this country is where it is today despite the fact that some of us are willing to cope with the situation and move it forward no matter what.

“What they succeeded in doing is to balkanize and cause more divisions among us the present generation. It is either you are caught in an issue of religion or tribe and over and over, this has continued.

“What we are doing now as youths of this country is to form synergy, build capacity before the next elections to ensure that never again will we allow anyone that is not our contemporary to occupy any political space, we won’t do that and that is what we are doing now.

“The youths are set for 2023. Recent happenings in the country have shown that we have the capacity and that is a clear demonstration of ENDSARS, it happens just within a small place and if you could see how it exposed a lot of weakness on the part of the federal government, we don’t intend to go through that process of ENDSARS where there were casualties of lives and properties. No, we are going to be very objective, we will demand through a political process, through the ballot paper, through our voter’s Cards, we will mobilize our generation, never again will we put somebody at the helm of affairs that is above 50 years.”

Shettima lamented that the older ones in the country, who got everything on a platter of gold “are still not ready to relinquish power to the present generation”, stressing that, “We expect them to set the pace, to put the present generation on the right track so that at the end of the day, side by side, work with them and move the country forward.

“They refused and still maintained the status-quo and that is why often times when a new team comes up, because of their mindset, they are not thinking towards moving Nigerians to higher standards.”

On the insecurity of the country, he observed that it would not be good for someone to preempt the impact of the new Service Chiefs, saying, “We should look at the source of the problem before looking at the solution. To change the service Chiefs is not enough to solve the security challenges in the country.

“There is a need to overhaul the entire security network in the country. It has to be a thing of side by side with the communities so that together we can have confidence in the security agents because it requires a lot to build that confidence.

“Overtime, that confidence has been abused by the various sectors of the security, it requires inclusiveness of the members of the society side by side with the security agents so that we can do it through intelligence gathering because we are faced with issues of kidnapping, Boko Haram, banditry and other social vices in the country.

So it is not a natural conventional approach that we always see, this one is a different methodology and so to that extent, the government must be seen to provide all the necessary equipment for the security to be able to succeed, that is, to counter what their enemies are carrying.”

On reprisals, he noted,

“Government has a lot of jobs to do, Nigerians are doing their bit, the government must be seen to be decisive, to do justice to all, the government must be seen to deal with anybody found wanting, because the law is the law to everybody in the country.

“There is no way why anybody should take the law into his or her hand. The government should be seen doing the right thing so that the people will also sit up to do the right thing.”

Speaking on farmers/herdsmen clashes in the country, Shettima noted that the federal government needed to be serious to ensure that only modernized style of grazing was done to avoid any clash between the farmers and the herdsmen in any part of the country.

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Business

Tax Reform Bills: The Verdict of Nigerians

Published

2 weeks 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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