- Safiu Kehinde
Former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, has attributed Northerners opposition of the tax reform bills to misinformation, stressing that their reaction is based on available lies.
Dogara stated this while speaking at the Town Hall Debate organized by Channels TV on Monday.
The former lawmaker, who also admitted to his initial ignorance of bills’ contents, said the Northerners are misinformed by their leaders.
He, however, expressed optimism of better understanding of the bill with discussions and debates organized for the bills analysis by experts and stakeholders.
“I think reactions from the North is based on the available lies. But we are telling them that they are being misinformed.
“All of us operate within the available lies that we have. For instance, when I first had discussion about tax reforms, I was merely listening to people interpret what the the proposals were.
“As a matter of fact, I have not even read them myself. So in most case, people react to information without bothering to check if those information they have had are actually true.
“You can’t blame a lot of people if they react this way because they are listening to their leaders who are misinforming them.
“In a forum like this, you have heard from the experts. They have spoken to this. I believe efforts like this will get people truly informed concerning these reforms.” Dogara said.
The former Speaker, however, commended the Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reform, Taiwo Oyedele, for dismissing claims of FG’s plan to secure the service of Alpha Beta in collection of tax.
Meanwhile, Dogara dispelled lawmakers concern about the hastiness of the bill.
He disclosed how some bills were passed in matter of weeks during his tenure while calling the attention of the lawmakers to the cost of delaying the passing of bills.
“On thing that was raised here that is important is the issue of trust. And I’m happy that you brought up this issue that we are trying to use Alpha Beta as against just Lagos.
“When you hear a lot of people saying why in a hurry? They know that there is no hurry in anything. I was in that parliament.
“There are so many legislations that we ramped up within weeks. Nobody was talking about hurry then.
“They will even tell you, oh why PIP not hurriedly don like this! Have they actually seek to count the cost of taking years to work one si.ple bill like the PIP?
“For those who fear that the President has an agenda to impose Alpha Beta on revenue collection in Nigeria, it is important for us to dispel that by the instrument of the amendment he was just talking about.” Dogara said.
He, however, suggested that the National Assembly would have rather come up with a clause of non-involvement of consultants to shut the door on the possibility of bringing Alpha Beta.
“There is nothing nothing stopping us at the level of the National Assembly to say look we will introduce improvise in this work that says that in executing this law, the Nigerian Revenue Service shall not have cause to consultancy.
“That solves the problem. So if the President were to say oh I’m not going to sign it for that clause, then it will become clear that yes he really want to introduce Alpha Beta.” The former lawmaker added.