Connect with us

Featured

Nauseating Local And International COVID-19 Politics

Published

on

Joel Ajayi

Nigeria’s roads are in a mess, our public hospitals are below-average, and our public educational institutions are wearing looks of abandonment. And these are just three examples of Nigerian public affairs in dire need of urgent attention.

In a statement issued by National Coordinator South-East APC Presidency Project 202 Chinedu Jideofo-Ogbuagu on Thursday

But our government officials are fixated on finding trillions of naira to import so-called Covid-19 vaccines, which many people believe are intended to wipe out at least half of Nigeria’s estimated 200 million persons and make the remainder sterile (that is, incapable of producing children). If any of us manage to survive, their vaccines would have altered our DNA and human characteristics irreversibly.

In other words, the Covid-19 vaccines our government officials are hell-bent on forcing us to accept, the same government officials who denied us Covid-19 palliative, are intended to exterminate all Nigerians sooner or later. When you hear that 100 million Nigerians will receive Covid-19 vaccine free-of-charge, smell a rat!

President Buhari has a duty to halt any attempt to bring any Covid-19 vaccine into Nigeria.

Remember how Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila attempted to make a secret overnight law for compulsory Covid-19 vaccination even before any Covid-19 vaccine had been produced.

 

The desperation of the Covid-19 promoters is enough evidence that it is not life but death that they want for us.

Now that Covid-19 vaccines have been produced months after the Femi Gbajabiamila affair, remember that no Covid-19 vaccine manufacturer has guaranteed the safety of its vaccine, which means that it knows the danger of the vaccine.

But corruption and wickedness of some government officials have made them blind and insensitive to our common humanity.

That both Covid-19 and Covid-19 vaccines are foreign manufactures with Nigerian agents should not confuse anyone. Genocide and corruption are their motives – with inducement, intimidation, threat, blackmail, compulsion, lying, and propaganda their methods.

What did Fela Anikulapo-Kuti call international conspiracies against good governance and humanity? International Thief-Thief (ITT).

Beware and be warned. Do not allow yourself to be intimidated and blackmailed to your untimely death. Interrogate the Covid-19 promoters until they stop the Covid-19 scam and dubious statistics. Meanwhile, don’t touch their killer Covid-19 vaccines.

They had expected Covid-19 propaganda and lockdown to massacre us, but that didn’t happen. Now, they want to use the vaccines to achieve mass deaths compulsorily! The devil is a liar.

 

.

 

 

Continue Reading
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

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 :)