Featured

Nigeria’s Sports Minister, Dare, holds Tripartite meeting with Algerian, Egyptian Counterparts

Published

3 years ago

September 28, 2021

Nigeria’s Minister of Youth and Sports Development Mr Sunday Dare on Tuesday in Abuja held a Tripartite meeting with his counterparts from Algeria and Egypt on how to foster mutual benefits among their countries.

The meeting formed part of activities marking the 40th anniversary of the Association of National Olympic Committees in Africa (ANOCA) taking place in Abuja..

Speaking during the meeting, Dare said, “When I visited Egypt some three months ago, we had a joint meeting where we reviewed youth and sports development programmes of our countries and explored common areas we can leverage on . We have spent the past few weeks trying to see which areas can be best explored. We agreed that he would either come to Abuja or I would visit Cairo.Gladly, he has come to Abuja and we want to warmly welcome him.

“It is also so important to welcome the Minister of Youth and Sports Development from Algeria who was the Chairman of the Anti Corruption War in Algeria, the equivalent of our EFCC chairman before he became the Minister.

“The population of Youth in Africa, Nigeria, Algeria, Egypt is growing in leaps and bounds. These youth need to be engaged either by giving them employment, or by keeping them busy through sports and competitions, providing them finance to start their own businesses or by simply ensuring that we give them the digital skills that they need. So, for youth development there are four critical areas; Digital Skills and Digital Literacy for the digital economy for the 24th century. How do we operate this aspect because we have that challenge and I am sure we will know whether it’s the same challenge.

“The youths are restless, if they are not engaged in productive activities, they go on riot, go into drug abuse and other vices. We see sports as a tool for unity and tool to keep the youth busy. We believe that when a youth goes to practice wrestling in the morning, does same in the evening all he wants to do is to eat dinner and sleep. But when he sits in the morning, 14 hours everyday doing nothing, he can be recruited for protest or recruited for any kind of vices. Sports can be used as a tool to promote peace and unity

“Thirdly, there is the need to empower our youth, give them the finance and the resources they need to become self-employed, to become entrepreneurs and wealth creators.

“Government can no longer employ all the youth. Government jobs are not available but the youth have problems with banks to access loans where the interest rate in this country is about 21-24% . In Nigeria, we were able to establish the youth investment fund at an interest rate of 5% single digit, the lowest and we think that would help to turn our youths to entrepreneurs. I think these are the key major areas. I can provide another example when it comes to sports. It is important that we have inter-country tournament and championship beyond what we do in Nigeria, Egypt, Algeria and Morocco. We can come together and organise a Volleyball Tournament, or an Athletics Championship. It’s miniature skills but it’s impactful. In athletics, some points could be gained and ranking improved. We can even organize football matches; we just did a six -Nation football tournament which the FIFA and CAF presidents came. It had six top women football countries in Africa participate and it was an exciting time where they also got points for participating.

“Also, we can look at youth exchange, our youths love to travel, sadly some of them travel illegally. We can have them make this travel legally and be more impactful. We will design a youth exchange programme between our countries. From Egypt and Algeria we may have 50 youths selected by Egyptian Ministry or the Algerian Ministry have a programme in Nigeria which they will fit into, whether it is a Sports event, digital skill or entrepreneurship skills program. We can even start with 10 youth for a month exchange program. That was the practice in the past but it stopped. But youths in Algeria, Egypt and Nigeria want the same thing. They want jobs, capital to start businesses, they want to build a career, they want government to support them and set them on the path of progress. I think these are the critical areas we can work on. We will mention the programs that we have, but the MOU will look at the four critical areas. We start to look at what programme does Egypt, Algeria or Nigeria have in sports that are alike and design such programs as a module for the youth of our country.

In his response, the Algerian Youth and Sports Minister Abderezak Sebagag said, “I wish to thank the Minister of Youth and Sports Development from Nigeria and Egypt.

“Concerning the developmental policy that we want to engage our youth in our respective countries, especially the aspect of improving their digital skills, we have a volunteer program in Algeria.

The Egyptian Minister of Youth and Sports Development, Dr. Ashraf Sobhi also affirmed, “We as a Ministry, we will work as one country in an effort to develop youth and sports in Africa. With the scheme from the Honourable Youth and Sports Minister from Nigeria , we can seek how to work together.

“We should use our roles and positions as Ministers of youth and sports to promote our vision and development. If we work together, our development and plans can become reality”

“We look at the sports part of the youth activities, we look at sports as a leisure, as recreation, as competition and tournament. Actually we have to look at Sports as a product to shield the youth from vices in their society. In Egypt, we have a full strategy merging youth and sports. Basically we use sports development to aid education till 2052.

“We are developing our premises, which means we are developing our facilities and sports facilities because without good facilities we can’t actualize our plans for the future”, he concluded.

Share on Facebook

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.

Share on Facebook