…As party demands suspension of Tax Laws
Security agencies have taken strategic positions around the Secretariat of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) over planned protests against President Bola Tinubu’s tax laws.
The party had called for the immediate suspension of the Tinubu administration’s tax laws, scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2026.
Bolaji Abdullahi, in a recent statement, said the call followed recent findings that the final version of the law contains substantial forgery of provisions that were not in the original bill passed by the National Assembly.
BusinessDay gathered that the security agencies made up of mainly police officers took strategic positions around the office located near Access Bank, Wuse 2, as early as 7am on Monday morning.
As at the time of filing in this report, the security agencies who are keeping vigil in the environment, however allowed free flow of traffic around the area.
The ADC had warned that tampering with such a piece of legislation after it has been passed by the National Assembly is an “indication that President Tinubu desires to concentrate all powers in himself.”
Read also: ADC demands suspension of new tax laws over alleged unauthorised changes
The opposition party demanded the immediate suspension of the tax laws to allow the legislature to determine the extent of the forgery inserted by the Tinubu administration and to take the necessary corrective actions.
The party also called for a public inquiry to investigate the circumstances surrounding the criminal alterations of a duly passed law, and to ensure that the perpetrators are brought to justice.
The ADC said its forensic review of the original laws and the gazetted versions has also “established beyond all doubt that key accountability provisions were deleted and new provisions inserted, granting coercive powers to the Executive in the enforcement of the tax laws without recourse to the courts.
“For example, one of the criminal insertions into the laws grants the Bola Tinubu government the express power to arrest and take over the property of anyone who does not comply with the tax laws.
“For the avoidance of doubt, under our Constitution, only the legislature can make laws. Therefore, any legislation that has not been passed according to the provisions of the Constitution cannot stand. To accept that the Executive could whimsically insert or remove even a punctuation mark from a piece of legislation after it has been passed by the legislature is to arrogate law-making powers to the Executive arm of government. This portends grave danger to our democracy.”
