Claims that important elements of the recently gazetted tax reform laws were changed after the National Assembly passed them have been denounced by the Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG) as treasonous subversion of Nigeria’s democratic order and rascality.
According to Daily Independent, the group demanded the immediate suspension of the tax laws’ implementation, a thorough investigation, and the arrest of everyone involved, warning that the purported changes amount to an executive seizure of legislative authority.
It is troubling that tax reform bills that were “duly debated, subjected to public hearings, and passed by the legislature were later “doctored, rewritten, and gazetted as law by some criminal-minded individuals,” the CNG said in a statement released today by its National Coordinator, Comrade Jamilu Aliyu Charanchi.
The coalition characterizes the development as “an executive coup against the National Assembly, carried out through stealth, impunity, and contempt for the Constitution” and claims that Nigeria is dealing with “a brazen act of treacherous expropriation of constitutional authority by elements within the Executive arm of government.”
According to the CNG, the purported legal manipulation amounts to fraud, an economic ambush on the populace, and a direct attack on democracy and its fundamental principles.
It referenced cautions made by prominent constitutional lawyer Professor Auwal Yadudu that such measures jeopardize constitutional governance, violate the separation of powers principle, and damage the legitimacy of the tax reform initiative.
Emphasizing its name: “Alarming Alterations.” Just examining the Nigeria Tax Administration Act reveals startling inconsistencies: (A) Despite being expressly approved by the National Assembly, Section 3(1)(b) of the gazetted version removed provisions on VAT and Petroleum Income Tax, undermining legislative agreement and producing internal legal conflicts.
In contrast to the Act authorized by NASS, which permits computation in the currency of the transaction, Section 39(3) was changed to impose the US dollar as the exclusive currency for tax computation.
“Sovereignty, inflation, and economic justice are all at risk from this.
Before exercising their right of appeal, taxpayers must deposit 20% of their contested tax assessments, according to Section 41(8), a completely new and harsh provision that was snuck into the gazetted version.
Because it creates financial obstacles to justice, this is discriminatory, repressive, and initially unconstitutional.
“Section 60(1) violates due process and procedural fairness by giving tax agents complete garnishee powers without a court order.
Sections 60(4–5), which selectively demand court orders for certain authorities while exempting others, are even more scandalous—a distortion that the National Assembly never considered.
The CNG points out that these are purposeful, substantial rewrites rather than small editorial adjustments.
Furthermore, they might only represent a small portion of the larger manipulation included in all four tax reform Acts.
An IMF-Driven, Neo-Colonial Tax Fraud
Without reservation, CNG asserts that the entire tax reform agenda, as it stands, is a product of a neo-colonial and neo-imperial economic endeavor intended to appease the policy recommendations of the World Bank, IMF, and other Bretton Woods organizations at the expense of Nigerians, small companies, farmers, and the impoverished.
The recent Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the French tax agency Direction Générale des Finances Publiques and the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) was signed without parliamentary review or public openness, which strengthens this assumption.
“Nigerians need to know whose interests these reforms are actually serving.”
All tax reform Acts, including the scheduled take-off date of January 1, 2026, were to be immediately suspended, according to CNG.
Additionally, it demanded that both houses of the National Assembly conduct a thorough, impartial, open, and time-bound examination that included a clause-by-clause comparison of the laws that parliamentarians passed and the versions that were gazetted and approved.
“Public exposure, identification, and prosecution of all individuals, agencies, or officials found to have authorized, executed, certified, or facilitated these alterations,” stated Charanchi.
“If decisive action is not taken, public mistrust will grow, long-term constitutional litigation will be encouraged, the economy will become unstable, and a dangerous precedent where laws are rewritten behind closed doors will be established.”
Therefore, CNG stated unequivocally that Nigerians will not accept financial responsibilities resulting from legislation that are corrupted by fraud, secrecy, or constitutional illegitimacy.
“Where due process is sacrificed on the altar of executive arrogance, democracy cannot endure.”
“As Nigeria’s democracy must be protected and the will of the people must never be tampered with, we demand transparency and accountability.”
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