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Quality of our League Inhibit Chances of Our Coaches..Adebayo Gbadebo

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A former Junior International, who is now a Premiership Coach in Thailand, Adebayo Gbadebo has opined that the quality of Nigeria league affects the rating of Nigerian coaches outside the country.

 

Gbadebo, who spoke to a Popular WhatsApp Platform “FCT Football Update” said with the quality of talents that are abound in the country, that Nigerian coaches are supposed to be in hot demand in the foreign countries, but standard of the league and football been played, can not encourage any serious minded club to hire a Nigerian coach.

The former Stationery Stores of Lagos player said if Nigerian coaches would want to have a look at outside Nigeria, they should be ready to refresh themselves and step up in the pyramid of the profession.

 

Gbadebo who is the Manager/Head Coach of Suphanburi FC of Thailand, a Premier league club in Thailand further revealed that coaching a team outside the shores of the country depends on the owners of the club, how they see the team, how they want the team to play and the plans they have for the team, that is what determines the type of Coach they will engage “this can be achieved when they watch our matches on Television or YouTube, see the quality of the games and coaches who are on top of what they are doing, the people will start taking a look at our coaches. A coach must have the requirements needed”.

 

Continuing, he said “Nigeria football is very interesting, but the quality of the league needs improvement so that those foreign administrator would want to have those handling the teams to help them o develop theirs. But, if we compare the standard of what we have now, it will be difficult for Nigerian coaches to handle any team outside the country”.

 

The Coach who also played for now defunct Eagle Cement of Port Harcourt in 1992 frowned at the use of artificial turf for league matches saying that that as the worst thing that would happen to Nigeria football “playing on artificial turf is bad. It lowers the standard of game. There is no where in the world that they are using artificial turf for their league matches. The stage matters, and that is what is depriving us the opportunity of seeing the lot of talents that are in our league” he concluded.

 

Adebayo Gbadebo, a Sociology graduate of the University of Ibadan, helped Stationery Stores of Lagos to play up to the Semi finals of the African Champions cup in 1993 before he joined Bouri FC of Lebanon, Mohun Bagan of India, Tore Sasana of Thailand, and retired at PS Pekambaru of Indonesia. He is an AFC Pro License holder, and has Port FC as General manager, Rajpracha FC as Technical Director before joining Suphanburi FC, as their Technical Director and now the Head Coach of the club.

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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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