… Says Tinubu excellent on bills, but must be careful
From Kenneth Udeh, Abuja
The Leader of the 9th Senate, Senator Abdullahi Yahaya Adamu, has lent his voice to the controversial Tax Reform Bills, meticulously untangling the fears harboured by most Nigerians, specifically the Northerners.
Though he embraced the concept of changing the old system of taxation, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) lawmaker, however, questioned the “technicality” and “political” wills used in championing the bills.
The Kebbi North lawmaker urged President Bola Tinubu to consider introducing the new tax policies in ‘phases’ instead of lumping all of them together, arguing that the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) may lack the technical manpower to solely collect the volume of taxes handled by agencies in the country like NPA, NIMASA , among others.
On the political side, he posited that the bills may not see the light of the day no matter how ‘brilliant’ they appear except they receive the ‘political’ buy-in of political , religious and tribal stakeholders across the country which can be achieved through broad consultations.
Abdullahi scored the Northern governors over the years low in taking advantage of the Northern population to harness its human and natural resources.
He also gave his verdict on the economic impact of the Dangote and Port Harcourt refineries, political parties in the country, among other silent issues of public interest. Excerpts:
There are diverse angles of argument to the Tax Reform Bills proposed by President Tinubu, as a stakeholder from the North aside from derivation, which other aspects of the bills do you think the North is dissatisfied with and do you subscribe to the bills and the approach which they were introduced to Nigerians?
It’s an excellent attempt to depart from what we are used to, to a new thing, but moving from an old to a new thing involves a lot of challenges. There are challenges of implementation from a new system to an old system and some of these taxation systems have been there during the British era. Now trying to do all these things within a period of time by compressing them raises a lot of fears . Naturally, people fear “change” because they don’t even know how it will impact them. So, for me, the implementation should have been gradual and stretched over a long period of time. You start from one then you move to another. Let me give you an example; I am a member of the Senate Elders Committee on Tax Bills so I’m not supposed to make any comment, but this is my personal view and the fears of change that people have. Now, if you are going to centralise a lot of tax collections in one single institution, you must ask if that institution has the institutional mechanism and required manoower to administer those kinds of taxes. For example, if you decide that the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS ) is to collect taxes meant to be collected by agencies like the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA , Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Nigerian and Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (UPRC), you have to ask if the FIRS has the manpower, technology and experience to carry out such task. There are a lot of things that need to be clearer, maybe a lot of engagements , so people are not against the tax bills as such, but they are fearful about the lack of clarity about what will happen, because they are used to the old system. One thing I find objectionable is that people compare us with the practice of other countries like the United States but they forget that every nation or institution has its own development trajectory. You cannot just take a system and graft it on another country and think that it will just go like that so you have to have an institutional development history. Different nations have different development trajectories, from religion, tribe and they have been accustomed to those kinds of things. Allow the Nigerian institutional experience to mature , if there are problems somewhere try to correct them instead of grafting experiences of other nations. Remember we also have our own experiences. Some things that we do are far better than how Americans do theirs. I can show you so many things that we have that Americans would have loved to copy.
Give us an update on the 10-Man Elders Committee set up by the Senate to engage with the Presidency to resolve the thorny Tax Bills issues that are polarising the polity?
The committee that I am part of will go into the nitty gritty of these issues and they are not emotional and I believe and hope that we should not use whatever we are doing to bring disunity to this Npnation. Don’t use this tax bill to divide this country , Don’t allow those kinds of suspicions to come to a point where this country will be divided. Because the issue is not only about taxation, there are so many issues up there so if you use this thing to demonise a certain section of the country because you think they are not following your agenda then it is wrong. This nation has only an agenda and it is unity and inclusivity. Everyone looks up to the president and under no circumstances should the president be pushed to regard any section of this country as enemies or as people who are primed against him or his reforms.
Which aspects of the bills worries you the most?
This issue of the tax bills has two dimensions which are the “technical” and “political dimensions”. The technical dimension which involves the provisions in the bills and how they affect the way things are done and what kind of reforms are suggested. Revenue allocation of the VAT is also a technical issue, we can always say let’s reverse the figures, but there is Section 160 sub-section 2 of the Constitution about how revenues of the Constitution should be divided and the roles of Revenue Mobilisation Allocation Fiscal Commission, RMAFC, President and that of the National Assembly and it is very clear in the Constitution, let’s not go and start using this thing to divide this country under religious , ethnic or regional lines. The president must resist any attempt by anybody from any quarter to do this.
And we have the political issues, there is nobody in this country that will say “no” if called by the president. So, the political side is for the president to take the political leadership and bring everybody on board. He should do this with an open mind, he should look at these issues broadly , it’s to make sure that every section of this country benefits and nobody loses. It’s about the issue of inclusivity and only the president can do this. All we are trying to do in the committee as a Senate and us as elders is to sit down and look at it from a technical angle and raise issues, ask questions and seek some measure of clarity. We brief the Senate and also the president on what our observations are.
We all have leaders in our constituencies, nobody in the National Assembly brought him or herself. Sometimes these leaders might not understand what is involved.
It’s left for us and the president to make them understand not to demonise them, sometimes they may be wrong, but don’t demonise them and try to explain in such a way that they will understand.
So what’s the way forward to overcome these issues you mentioned?
The only thing you can do is through education, orientation and engagement. The more you try to shackle people the more you create room for mischief makers and in this era of social media I’ve been hearing so many things which are outrageous because this is not true especially to some of us who have read the bills. Because someone has lived by the grace of God for 70 years and those who did the bills don’t know the history of this country like we do. They don’t have absolute knowledge, but they are very brilliant young men who over the years have developed digital and knowledge capacities which are better than our own, but there are certain things that we know that they don’t know.
They lack the institutional memories of these things which must be taken into consideration while coming up with such a bill. Some of them don’t know how this country has progressed politically to this point. We will look at the bill as suggested changes that can be implemented now and that should be spread over a period of time so that we can get the same objective without having any issues. The president must bring in the most obdurate people to understand your position, at least political skills. I believe the president is one of the most skillful politicians that we have ever had in this country. He had the political skills that he used to win elections and the same skills should be employed in achieving this tax reform and getting some of the provisions there to be tampered and taken care of over a certain period of time. Some will require a lot of training and you have to retool the Revenue Mobilization Fiscal Commission to handle some of the responsibilities that are not put under it.
Are you for or against the bills ?
I agree that there is a need to reform our tax bills, but the approach is my major concern and the politics and technicalities. The political is to assure the constituents, the leaders of all regions, religious leaders , Muslims , Christians , all of them. Bring them together to separately let there be a national dialogue to sort out some of these things. Politics can trump economics, however, brilliant or beautiful your ideas are. Politics must be involved and taken care of. If I don’t trust you politically I won’t agree with you. You provide political clarity and build the political foundation for economic reform.
You’ll agree with me that every part of this country has its comparative advantages in terms of mineral and human resources. Looking at the North and the period in which they have been in power, do you think they have done enough to harness their own resources?
No, I don’t think the governors had done enough. One of the reasons for that is that you don’t develop economies in an insular manner , no state is a coherent economic hub. You cannot develop Northern economies in silos , you have to create broad economic conditions. What I mean is that the economy of the North and its productive enterprises is mainly agriculture and now solid minerals is coming up and the agriculture that we do is done on ecological platform. Similar crops that are grown so what we need are combinations that Sokoto, Kano, Kebbi , Zamfara and some other parts of the country need to sit down and plan their economies outside the political terrototeraily of their states. Before these states were created, we had Northern Nigeria where you collect all the groundnut that are grown in the North and pyramids around Kano where the railways are in Gusau and other places and the infrastructure you have to have , let’s say Kebbi State governor wants to construct a railways and you know railway is now on the Concurrent List. But you cannot just do a railway in Kebbi State, but if you combine resources with Sokoto, Zamfara, Katsina then it makes sense. If you are building processing industries it makes sense if you are investing. There should be a regional plan and cohesive investment in which each of the governors will come together and each of them will decide how much they want to invest. They know their comparative advantages and they know how to channel their investment. What they have been doing all these while is creating tension in politics, creating offices, some the governors have over 1,000 political advisers, but have refused to invest in agriculture and solid minerals and human resource, especially education and health care. We have industrialization, but you must invest in people first, industries can’t succeed if you don’t have knowledgeable skilled operators, so the foundation is education. If people are healthy and well educated, these are sectors that have been neglected in every state, not just the North. With a few exceptions when you see some classrooms in the Northern states you’ll be disappointed. Some of us in the National Assembly are doing our part with constituency projects to build schools. Education is nor just about buildings, it’s about the curricula, teaching materials, well paid and well motivated teachers. Today, people see teaching as the least job, but they forget all the leaders this country produced have been teachers particularly Tafa Balewa, Sarduana , Aminu Kano , Shagari they were all teachers at some point.
A large aspect of the nation’s hardship has been attributed to the astronomical cost of petrol in the country, with the commencement of the Dangote and Port Harcourt refineries, do you foresee a reduction in prices?
It might not bring down the prices of fuel actually, even if they sell the crude to the refineries in naira they have to sell in naira to the equivalent of foreign exchange. So, if today oil is going for $75 per barrel all you need to do when selling to Dangote is to multiply it with N1,600, so it’s almost the same thing. I don’t think you can bring down the price of fuel under these conditions because once you do that you’ll have to go back to subsidising it. The only way you can bring down the price of fuel is to raise the earning power of the Nigerian population. Through employment, income capacity and investing in the real sector of the economy so that people can earn more income to accommodate the price you are talking about. The crisis we have today is that prices are rising while the income capacity of the people is going down. Employment is not generated and industries are not producing to optimum capacity; they operate at a loss due to the volatile exchange rates. There has to be a consistent programme of investing in the manufacturing and industrial base of the economy. It’s not a question of just fiscal and financial reforms . China has room for making capital investment in production and infrastructure. Once you develop these things , you ease the conduct of business and cost of goods and services and make sure that people have the capacity to earn more than they have been earning and farmers can have certainty that they can sell off their crops and invest again in return. Industries that produce don’t have to rely on imports for raw materials so you create demands from local production sources. Once you invest in the productive side of the economy people’s income will rise and the price of fuel won’t mean much.
How will you rate President Tinubu’s performance in security?
Coming from an area where insecurity has been prevalent . On the left, the economic foundation pools capacity to earn a decent living that forces people into crime. In earlier years of this country there was nothing like this, the Fulanis were moving with their cattle all over this country, so these disputes were localised by the farmers. When there are disputes between the farmer and the cattle herder the locals will come and adjudicate. Before you give the Fulani man food and will collect manure from the cows for your crops, there have been this kind. But competition for survival starts, then some people start coveting other people’s resources and deny them there means of survival they will have no means than to fight back once they find out their means of survival is threatened and this exactly is what is happening and a lot of it has to do with the failure of the state to provide the meaningful guidelines for every sector of the economy to operate optimally unhindered and to also assure the delivery of justice, irrespective of whose ox is gored. A lot of it is as a result of state irresponsibilities and states lack of investment in the life of the ordinary people. Establishment of Bio Stations where farmers can go and sell their surplus , giving farmers seedlings. But somehow the states somehow turned itself into a predator and predated institutions like the police , judiciary. In fact, everybody is trying to squeeze people and once people are squeezed and they have no more other means of surviving they attack those who have. The only way is for the governments of the states and the Federal Government to come out with a resolve that the main purpose of governance is to make life better for every ordinary Nigerian and you do that by educating their children in good schools and good teachers , instructional materials and health care.
Our security problem is internal. The government must completely change the orientation of governance. They say we, senators, are not entitled to even one small Lexus but you see one governor is equivalent to three Senators. But go to the fleet of governors and see the fleet of vehicles they are using. Each state has three Senators elected by the people, so why can’t the governor limit himself to three SUVs? But people say I as a Senator shouldn’t get at least one , let’s not even talk about the ministers. If you go to states they have killed the ministries , the ministries there don’t work.
What must the President do to rekindle national unity and trust?
The president has been there for only two years so you cannot fault him for a lot of things that he has inherited. He has inherited a country that is in a very serious crisis and a lot of it where foundations were laid by his predecessors, but as much as it is he has to own up to those crises and accept the responsibilities in fact all the troubles are now on his head. A lot of people in the North, particularly Muslims attended missionary schools. Even some of us that attended public schools there were colleagues that were provided with facilities though it was Muslim majority, but they were recognised. The major problem we have is allowing charlatans to go into positions of leadership . Leadership is a sacred calling not every Tom, Dick, and Harry can be a leader, so because people see politics as a shortcut to wealth, they rush into that. During the military era a lot of people preferred to send their children to military school and a lot of them were not trying to push their children into the civil service. Some of us who are rebels went to universities because they don’t earn much and that’s when the civil service including the military became a corrupt institution because it was housing political power.
Many have argued that political parties have not done enough in churning out competent candidates , do you agree with this?
Political parties are not alone, well equipped to really do a proper kind of leadership selection process that brings people who have vision into positions, in fact, they hate people who have vision. People who have vision don’t tolerate nonsense so the political parties select only those who can do “dobale” (bow down) to them. The qualifications that are needed for leadership are not well thought out or applied across party lines. All the political parties, there are no convictions or direction, anybody can be anything, what is the difference between PDP and APC? Virtually, none or any other political party ,they are just a collection of power seekers. They have no political Ideologies or convictions about the directions in what they want to take the people of this country. The people should be courageous enough to discern and elect the right people, but the problem now is that the political parties will not nominate the right people.
So, it’s an institutional problem so to break that maybe there has to be independent candidature and make it less stringent. Some of us contested but were denied nomination by my political party (APC), which I helped form and I was denied by just one individual, not even members of the party. Someone who saw himself as a governor because he had control over the party he kicked us out and I went to another party and defeated all their candidates. So, if I had stood as an independent candidate I would have still won.
What is next for Abdullahi Yahaya in 2027 , will he answer the call of his constituents again?
My personal conviction is that there is nobody who is indispensable, the world goes round. I am too old, even this one really I just resigned myself , the person who won the PDP seat when I left (APC), went to the party and resigned his candidature and the party in 14 days said if I am the one I should come and take over his candidature. So, I came and we did the primary again and I won, but if he had not left , he was the candidate because whether he won or not it could have been a different thing, but I think he realised that the chances of the party winning that seat was higher if I was the one contesting. So, he resigned and told the PDP that since I am now a member of the PDP I stand a better chance of winning the seat than him, so he resigned and they even took me to the Supreme Court. I don’t want to go to court again. I don’t have money.