Chairman of the Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms Committee, Taiwo Oyedele, has urged restraint and called for a proper investigation into claims that Nigeria’s newly enacted tax reform laws were altered after passage, insisting that reports circulating in the media did not emanate from the committee set up by the House of Representatives.
Oyedele spoke amid intensifying public debate and demands for an independent probe into alleged discrepancies between the tax laws passed by the National Assembly and the versions later gazetted. Prominent opposition figures, including former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and the Labour Party’s 2023 presidential candidate, Peter Obi, have also called for the suspension of the laws’ implementation pending clarification.
The controversy was ignited last week when Rep. Abdulsammad Dasuki (PDP, Sokoto) raised a matter of privilege on the floor of the House of Representatives, alleging that the gazetted tax laws differed from what lawmakers debated, voted on, and approved. Invoking Order Six, Rule Two of the House Rules, Dasuki said his legislative privilege had been breached.
He told the House that after comparing the gazetted copies with the Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives, as well as the harmonised version adopted by both chambers, he observed what he described as discrepancies.
“I was here, I gave my vote and it was counted, and I am seeing something completely different,” Dasuki said.
The lawmaker added that copies of the laws obtained from the Ministry of Information did not, in his view, reflect the versions approved by both the House and the Senate. He urged the Speaker to ensure that all relevant documents, including the harmonised bills, Votes and Proceedings of both chambers, and the gazetted copies, are presented for scrutiny, warning that presenting laws different from those duly passed could undermine public confidence in the legislature and raise constitutional concerns.
Responding to the allegations during an appearance on Channels Television’s Morning Brief, Oyedele dismissed suggestions that the tax laws were secretly altered after passage, arguing that there is currently no certified harmonised version in the public domain against which the gazetted laws can be compared.
“Before you can say there is a difference between what was gazetted and what was passed, we have what has not been gazetted. We don’t have what was passed,” he said.
“The official harmonised bills certified by the clerk, which the National Assembly sent to the President, we don’t have a copy to compare. Only the lawmakers can say authoritatively what was sent,” Oyedele added.
Addressing controversy surrounding Section 41(8), which reportedly required the payment of a 20 percent deposit, Oyedele said the provision appeared only in a draft version and not in the final gazette.
“I know that particular provision is not in the final gazette, but it was in the draft gazette. Some people decided that they should write the report of the committee before the committee had met, and it had circulated everywhere,” he said.
According to him, the House committee later confirmed that it had not met on the issue, stressing that conclusions being drawn in the media were premature.
“What is out there in the media did not come from the committee set up by the House of Representatives. I think we should allow them to do the investigation,” Oyedele said.