INDEPENDENT NG
Senator Orji Uzor Kalu is the lawmaker representing Abia North Senatorial District in the Red chamber of the National Assembly. In this interview, the former Governor of Abia State speaks on the tax reform bill before the National Assembly, why the bill will benefit Nigerians, the development of the Southeast region, among others. JOY ANIGBOGU brings the excerpts:
What is your thought on the changes governors effected on the tax reform bills, especially on the productivity derivation and population?
I believe the governors have just done the needful by doing what I feel was just. I listened to them one after the other and I have always said from day one that this bill was presented to the National Assembly that it was progressive. But we needed to also expand the discussion with other people. Most of the laws we are using today in Nigeria are very obsolete. They are not functional laws and laws we should continue using in the 21st century and in a place that you want to remodel and reposition the economy. If we do not do what we are trying to do today, we will be left behind by countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and all the rest of them. Look at even Vietnam of yesterday, they have all left us behind and I believe that we should be sincere in what we are doing. I congratulated the governors and I was more interested and more fulfilled when I heard the governor of Nasarawa State praising the bill, saying there is nothing wrong with the bill. The problem is that Nigerians do not read, listen and focus on issues to know what is wrong. I must congratulate the author of the bill that is President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Taiwo Oyedele and the Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Zaccheus Adedeji. So, I believe that this bill is going to be good for all Nigerians. It is not political or sectional but for the good of every state of Nigeria and every Nigerian to enjoy this bill. I’m motivated by this bill because as a private businessman who is in politics and as a Nigerian who needs this country’s economy to grow. It might be difficult in the few things the government is doing now but in the long run, we are going to see a better Nigeria. I was with President Thabo Mbeki in 2003 to witness the swearing-in of President Lula da Silva and I saw what happened because Brazil was in turmoil then but today they are rolling after a few years that he was President and put in jail and he was recalled back again to be President. So, this is what democracy is all about. We need to go to the tough areas and we will come back to enjoy the tough areas. It is just that most Nigerians on the streets are over-pampered and we don’t want to work. There is a lot of work on the streets of Nigeria but people only want to come and live in Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Aba, and Kaduna and they don’t want to go to farm. Nobody wants to do what is visible and think about tomorrow. So, I congratulate the governors honestly for what they have done.
What is your thought on the area of the VAT sharing formula that is one of the key highlights of the propositions of the Nigeria Governors Forum?
I believe that the people in the National Assembly have the last say but let me be honest with you, the governors have already set the turn rolling and there are no two ways to doubt what the governors have done. In one of my recent interviews, I looked at the ways the governors are thinking and that equality should be 50 per cent, derivation should be 30 per cent and the population can come to 20 per cent. Once you make the laws, it is not sacrosanct because this VAT sharing is a little thing compared to what is inside the bill. The bill is more beneficial to the Nigerian people than the sharing formula. I think the governors are just slightly right but I can say in my opinion that it is a starting point for the discussion and the National Assembly will start looking at it at that level. I think the President should also know that while I was saying in the past few months that the bill looks good and it is progressive but needs wider discussion. This is part of the wider discussion I was talking about and would expect the governors to go further down to discuss with the people in their states. So, this is politics and it is not the law itself. Sharing formula is politics and politics will come behind it and this is what the governors have done. I want to congratulate Nigerian Governors because they have shown leadership in this regard. They have also shown that discussion can pay and we have been saying that if enough consultations were made initially when President Tinubu wanted to get this bill into the National Assembly, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. President Tinubu means well and his advisers like Taiwo Oyedele and Zaccheus Adedeji also mean well but they needed to do a wider consultation. The Senate President was very special in this bill by sending it quickly to a public hearing because a public hearing is the only way we can get the feelings of the people. I never supported anybody withdrawing the bill or anybody putting away the bill because the bill is progressive. We cannot leave Nigeria the way it is. Nigeria has to change if we want to move forward. People are hungry and people need to come out of hunger people will appreciate this bill in the next few weeks because apart from the appropriation bill before us, this bill should be put in the driver’s seat immediately so that Nigerians can have the benefits of what we are talking about.
Looking at the tax reforms, particularly the revenue-sharing formula, some would say it places a greater emphasis on the state’s ability to generate and retain revenue based on consumption. How do you see this affecting productivity across the states?
These reforms will bring competition. When people see a country like China, people accuse them of bad human rights record, people accuse them of not respecting the law and people are accusing them of a one-party system. When you see a country like China, for the past 35 to 40 years, China has been growing by 10 per cent income every year. And if you look at it, it’s because there’s competition. All the provinces in China are competing against each other. The Federal Government can have a reserve fund to put to any state that is not meeting its obligations. This is possible, but let me be honest with you. When people say that the First Republic, did wonders, I agree they did wonders because there was competition. The northern region, the eastern region, the midwest region and the western region, were competing with one another. If we don’t bring back that competition, we cannot grow. We will be wasting our time. There is no state out of the 36 states that is not viable. All the states are viable. It’s just meant for our leaders, our governors, our sub-leaders to go back to the states and sit in the state and put their thinking caps. They think out what they will do with their area and do long-term planning. And every state is viable. I don’t agree with you. If you go to a state like Zamfara, it is one of the richest states. If you go to Sokoto, it is one of the richest states. You go to Kebbi State the amount of lithium in the state is unbelievable. I deal with international organisations and I have the spread and I have the survey almost everywhere in Nigeria.
There is no state in Nigeria that is not viable. So I don’t believe in this. People should stop putting Northern Nigeria down to say it will affect them. They have a lot of solid minerals that are untouched. It’s just to go out and look for investors. Once we’re able to get investors and get people to track on, this is also why I said these programmes will be spaced out so that they will not be shaken up by the process. But President Tinubu came out with a good idea to reform the tax law. The answer is positive. So I don’t think anybody is only going to put competition and make us go and work hard. Governors and people in government should stop buying luxurious cars every year. They should put money into investment. When we’re able to invest heavily, people can go back to where they are. So I believe that the law will do well for everybody. President Tinubu has done the very best he can do by bringing this law at this time. People are afraid of bringing this law and I don’t see anything being afraid of doing this job. So the job has to be done. I will vote for this bill and I will support the bill. But I will also discuss with our colleagues and agree on where that is not fair to others and we will fix it. But the bill, even if it’s passed into law, there will be continuous amendments when it’s not doing well. That is why you have the National Assembly. We are not just going to leave the laws to be stagnant again for over 100 years. We have laws that were made here by the colonial masters that are not touched. So we must be modern people and be touching the laws as quickly as possible. So I believe that this is what we should do as a country.
What do you make of the perception of people that this 10th Assembly appears to be a rubber stamp to everything coming from Aso Rock and that they do not see enough interrogation of what the executive is bringing, particularly when it concerns the president?
Let me be honest with you, we are not stooges to anybody. We are not sitting on anybody’s way. We’re very independent and we have shown it many times. We cannot come out to start fighting the executive, now and then, there will be a problem. We have a backdoor of disagreement and agreement. So the president himself has done a lot of consultations among the senators, sometimes among the leadership of the National Assembly. And we are not a rubber stamp. I’m not sure I’m one. You know me very well from when I was a governor. So I’m not somebody anybody can tell you about. I always disagree when it’s for Nigerian people to benefit. I always say, no, this is not good whether it’s the president or not. President Tinubu knows that. That I tell him nothing but the truth and I tell him the way I feel. Anytime I see him, I tell him there’s hunger in the land. We need to fight for it. He says, yes, I know. I know there is hunger. We are fighting to reverse it. So this is the issue. I’m not sure the National Assembly is rubber stamp as the people are looking at it. The issue is that we have a problem in the country. We are trying to give the executive every help they can get from us in terms of lawmaking to make sure that we speed up the process of people getting a better life so that people can feel the impact of the government. If I tell you that so many things we have disagreed with President Tinubu, you’ll be shocked. It’s just that we don’t want to make your constituency happy to see the executive and the legislator fighting. We have disagreed on many occasions and we kept it. This is where you always see the Senate and the House of Representatives calling for a closed session. We say, take back this to the president or let’s go ahead and do it. There are many times Senate Presidents have done that. There are many times the Speakers of the House of Representatives have done that. But we cannot continue letting you people make the Senate and the House of Representatives to be a laughingstock where every time we are fighting the executive. We are not in a fighting mood. We are in the repairing mood. We want to repair things so that Nigerians can have the benefit of democracy. This is why on that note, we cannot come out. I don’t even listen to people. Ask your colleagues who have interviewed me many times, I say it the way it is because I’m not looking at anybody’s face. And the Senate President has done his best by putting his colleagues together to be able to make sure that we come out of hunger. In terms of us not going to implement these laws. We must just make these laws. The executive and its team will find a way to implement it. If you have given us the seat of implementation, we will implement it. We must approve what we feel is right for Nigerians, what we feel is right for the executive and the judiciary, and leave it for them to go and implement. It’s not for us to implement. That is why Nigerians should stop blaming us. And this is why, you see, I hardly talk about my constituents, which is the legislature aspect of the government. Because when I was an executive, I never knew that the legislature was as deep as you think. You are telling me about making a budget. Let me be honest with you. The last week, I came back from the Christmas holiday. I’ve stayed in the National Assembly from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. every day. And people still think we are doing nothing. I mean, it’s not fair. We sat and you could see all the disagreements. We are not a rubber stamp, for God’s sake. We can see all disagreements between the executive and the legislature. You people just showed what happened between the Inspector General of Police and some members of the National Assembly. That should show you nobody is being stamped by anybody. Because they ask questions, they disagree, and we agree. Disagreeing with the Inspector General of Police doesn’t mean that what the Inspector General of Police was saying was not right. But he further came out. I respect the Inspector General of Police. He further went back to his office to address a little press conference to clarify issues. So you can see we always disagree. We always disagree, but we don’t come out to fight especially in the upper house, we are elderly people. Some of us have been governors. Some of us have been ministers. Some of us have been this and that. We don’t usually come out to disagree the way that will make your constituents, which is the press, very happy. No. We disagree to agree, and we agree to disagree…
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