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Speakership: Low turnout as Gbajabiamila launches campaign for Tajudeen

Published

2 years ago

May 18, 2023

By Lateef Taiwo

Members-elect for the 10th House of Representatives, on Wednesday, failed to honour the invitation of the Speaker, Rep. Femi Gbajabiamila for the sole aim of launching a campaign for Rep. Abbas Tajudeen, for the position of the Speaker for the 10th Assembly.

The ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) and the President-elect, Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu, had adopted Rep. Tajudeen, a Member representing Zaria Federal Constituency of Kaduna State for the position of Speaker in the next Assembly, to be inaugurated in 2 weeks.

Zoning of the number four citizen’s position to the North West and the subsequent adoption of Tajudeen, it was gathered, was the brain child of the current Speaker, Gbajabiamila, who prefers to continue holding grip of the 10th House of Representatives thereby making it possible for Tinubu to control the incoming Assembly.

But Gbajabiamila, during a meeting organized Wednesday night by the Joint Task for the 10th Assembly, an umbrella body for the actualization of Tajudeen’s ambition as Speaker, denied ever influencing the choice of the Kaduna born politician.

“North West geopolitical zone alone contributed 30% of the total votes for APC in the last elections” and ” if you conduct a proper research, the North West zone has not been considered for the number four position in the history of our parliament”, Gbajabiamila laboured to explain.

He was, however, shocked to see a hall filled with Support Groups, Journalists and spectators as the target audience (Members-elect) who posses the voting powers, largely boycotted the meeting.

Sensing that the little number inside the hall might not necessarily be Honourable Members and Members-elect, whom he has sought to address, Gbajabiamila requested for an executive session, apparently to see if he has enough numbers to make his anointed candidate Speaker; only to be bewildered that only 73 Members and Members-elect actually honoured the invitation.

The visibly angered Speaker was seen leaving the Osun Hall of Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja, just two minutes after asking for an executive session.

A Lawmaker who was in attendance and spoke to our Correspondent on condition of anonymity, explained that, “Gbaja was not happy seeing the number of Lawmakers in attendant and I think he has sensed danger, as an experienced politician, that his preferred candidate won’t fly”.

Asked if he was going to support Tajudeen, the Lawmaker who just won his election under the Labour Party, said he was actually at the meeting, like some of his friends, who got invitation that Rep. Gbajabiamila was going to address both returning and new Members, only to see that it was a forum to sell the candidacy of Tajudeen.

“Some of my Colleagues understood the reason for the meeting, but innocent me, like few of my friends I interacted with in the hall, didn’t get the notion behind the invitation, untill we got here and we decided to sit and listen to whatever they had to say. I was personally disappointed seeing just a few Members in attendance, because I had thought they got all the votes, since it’s their party that selected this man for Speaker.

“But since their own Members cannot honour their party and most of them stayed off, is it we from the minorites that would support APC? Even though we are more than them in number, we would not be used to project mediocrity or support the composition of a rubber-stamped Assembly. The institution of the National Assembly is supposed to be an independent Arm of Government and not an appendage of another arm of Government.

“The minority caucus has been meeting lately and we shall make our stand known soon. We shall throw our weight behind anyone we feel have the capacity and independent mind to make the 10th House work for the people of Nigeria and not for an individual. We shall support such a person, regardless of any region or State he or she comes from. About 358 Members are going to cast their votes to decide the next Speaker and I don’t think, this number I’m seeing here tonight can make one-quarter of the deciding votes”, the Member-elect added.

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Business

Tax Reform Bills: The Verdict of Nigerians

Published

1 week 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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