The former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar has said the controversy over the Tax Act bothers on constitutional issue and should not be ignored nor rushed into re-gazetting the flawed Act.
He stated that the confirmation by the Senate that the gazetted version of the Tax Act does not reflect what was duly passed by the National Assembly raises a grave constitutional issue.
In a stateemnt he issued on Sunday, the People’s Democratic Party’s Presidential flagbearer in the 2023 Presidential Election noted that ‘A law that was never passed in the form in which it was published is not law. It is a nullity.’
‘Under Section 58 of the 1999 Constitution, the lawmaking process is clear and exclusive: passage by both chambers, presidential assent, and only then gazetting. Gazetting is an administrative act of publication; it does not create law, amend law, or cure illegality. Where a gazette misrepresents legislative approval, it has no legal force’, he submitted.
The former Vice President argued ‘Any post-passage insertion, deletion, or modification of a bill without legislative approval amounts in law to forgery, not a clerical error. No administrative directive by the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, or the Speaker of the House, Tajudeen Abbas, can validate such a defect or justify a re-gazetting without re-passage and fresh presidential assent.’
He frowned at the desperation to manipulate the process of investigating the whole shenanigan through a rushed re-gazetting without the proper process of representing the bill and debating over it afresh.
“The attempt to rush a re-gazetting while stalling legislative investigation undermines parliamentary oversight and sets a dangerous precedent. Illegality cannot be cured by speed. The only lawful path is fresh legislative consideration, re-passage in identical form by both chambers, fresh assent, and proper gazetting”.
He stressed “This is not opposition to tax reform. It is a defence of the integrity of the legislative process and a rejection of any attempt to normalise constitutional breaches through procedural shortcuts.”
Atiku Abubakar
Vice President of Nigeria, 1999-2007.
