A former National Publicity Secretary of the defunct New People’s Democratic Party (nPDP) and chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief Eze Chukwuemeka Eze, has called on the National Assembly to immediately initiate impeachment proceedings against President Bola Tinubu following the alleged perversion of the Tax Reform Bill.
The Tax Reform Bill was recently passed by both arms of the National Assembly to widen Nigeria’s tax base, regulate tax administration, boost revenue, and reduce dependence on borrowing.
The alleged fraud was brought to light by Abdulsammad Dasuki, an opposition member of the House of Representatives from Sokoto State and a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
The lawmaker lamented that the tax laws available to the public differed significantly from the versions passed by the legislature.
Raising a Point of Order during plenary, Hon. Dasuki informed lawmakers that his legislative rights had been breached, insisting that the content of the gazetted tax laws did not reflect the entirety of what was debated, voted on, and approved during plenary.
He further revealed that after the passage of the tax bill, he spent three days reviewing the gazetted copies alongside the Votes and Proceedings of the House and the harmonized versions adopted by both chambers, discovering insertions that were alien to the original draft bill.
Reacting to the development, Eze described the foreign insertions as reflecting the evil illustrated in the biblical parable of the weeds in Matthew 13:25: “When men slept, the enemy sowed tares.”
“After lawmakers legislated on the draft bill and sent it to President Tinubu for assent, in the thick of the night, while lawmakers had retreated to slumberland and Nigerians were deep in sleep, the President stealthily grabbed the document, tampered with it, and distorted the law to suit his personal perspective of what a tax law should be,” Eze alleged.
“And since this embarrassment was made public, Senate President Godswill Akpabio has disappointingly acted to sweep it under the carpet. He has denied lawmakers access to the certified true copies of the bills.
“The restriction placed on lawmakers from accessing the certified copies by Sen. Akpabio has deepened suspicion and internal wrangling within the legislature,” he added.
Eze noted that the alleged alteration perpetrated by the President “is a criminal usurpation of the legislative process and the constitutional order, which clearly calls for serious, decisive legislative action against the President. It is heavy and should not be swept under the carpet.”
The APC chieftain said, “Such actions amount to gross misconduct, abuse of office, and violation of the constitution and should quickly trigger impeachment proceedings against the President under the constitutional provisions governing executive accountability.
“Any discrepancy between the enrolled bill and the passed bill is treated as a serious constitutional defect. President Tinubu does not possess line-item amendment powers unless explicitly granted by the constitution. And unfortunately, he does not have such powers under our laws.
“The business of law-making is the exclusive function of the legislature. Therefore, by his action, the President has usurped legislative authority.
“And interferences of this nature are grave and collapse the constitutional boundary between the executive and legislature. It also sets a dangerous authoritarian precedent that clearly undermines democratic governance.”
Eze decried the silence of the leadership of the National Assembly, an arm that ought to serve as a watchdog, stressing that their docility amplifies the desperation of the Tinubu administration to swindle Nigerians out of their earnings without due process.
