William ABORISADE

Baring the alleged crooked alteration of the Tax laws, just like any document which ever passes through this National Assembly, I thumb up for the tax laws, as proposed by the Taiwo Oyedele-led Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms. I have listened to him twice explaining the activities of this committee vis-a-vis the laws, and, on each occasion, he demonstrated a reasonably sufficient grasp of the issues.

Again, this isn’t condoning any legislative crookedness which seems to have become more visible since the ugly days of the “off your mic!” order, made in the open at the national assembly, to quieten an innocent testimony. Endorsing the demands of the many National patriots, I opine that the allegation must be investigated and the culprit, if any, must be treated in a way to deter future occurrences. Nobody is immune to the laws, only because he/she got elected. We, all know the meaning of honour when legislators are referred to as honourable, making rascality an anathema within the legislature.

Just as it is in all other events, in our country, questionably wealthy people, tax and all manner of crooks who move money the way tippers move sand in building sites, who evade tax, went to war, sponsoring ideas against the new law, throwing society into yet another form of chaos! Evil doers in our society take advantage of the sad fact that Nigerians, having been, long, impoverished to hunger and anger, are vulnerable to being set against the system, creating commotion and intimidating the government. Nowhere that I ever knew, is raw money carried the way we do here, all, in a bid to conceal relevant economic facts about such monies.

Any effort to regulate the system may be a right step in the right direction. It will sanitize our society, economically and socially and, by extension, reform our desecrated mindsets, in conformity with global standards. All monies must move through our banks and documented while bank managers collaborating with people to do otherwise, must be charged for economic sabotage, with penalty severe as it can be!

Few systems, in history, and anywhere, got this fractured, before stakeholders act! Our failure to act decisively, and timely, has been due to nothing more than sentiments. If a criminal is not “somebody’s child/friend/others” he/she is a “Christian/Muslim brother/sister”, crooked nomenclatures intended to confer immunity on criminals! Consequently, the very people who are supposed to be behind bars are the ones standing on rooftops to announce their presence!

As the tax laws, ultimately become effective, we, as a people, must understand that, no matter what we do, we won’t bring sanity into our polity until/unless we fight corruption to the ground. The fight must be ruthless and devoid of sentiments! Corruption offenders must be considered economic saboteurs and given the harshest of treatments, if only to serve as deterrent. Corruption, in its various forms, nothing else, is the reason our country becomes one of the most difficult human habitats, on the earth’s surface. Our nationals are among the hungriest and angriest, in the world. This is not good for security and, most probably accounts for the social chaos in which we find ourselves. We must re-engineer our public institutions, notably, the public service, the judiciary and our educational institutions, to enable a holistic recovery of the system. Discipline must be the cornerstone of everything we do.

The tax laws must be enforced, and violators must be treated as economic saboteurs! Imperfect as it may seem, the intention of the Committee, as spelt out by the Chairman, Taiwo Oyedele, can’t be any more patriotic. I doff my hat. The laws must be a premise for an economic redemption. And, if there must be a question, it should, patriotically, be about what the revenue would be used for. If it would be used to fund governors’ security votes, which have never secured anybody, or senators’ constituency allowances that are, currently being used for personal aggrandizements, it could become an issue of distaste.

Nigerians are fed up with undue aggrandizements of mere opportunists, even as the citizens live in deprivation, even of the basics of life, food and clean water!