When one speaks of lawlessness, Ogun State is one of the leading states apart from Lagos and Oyo States that empower illegality, anarchy and strengthen criminals to rob openly during the day with security agents and government officials’ protection.
The touts, who are mostly the instrument of politicians during elections although very insignificant to general populace, have taken advantage of docility of many including elites to turn aberration to normalcy by killing people with ease just because of dubious tickets.
It saddens one when police officers who are supposed to be law enforcement agents even turn out to be spokespersons for these criminals justifying their illegality with flimsy excuses. Or what could we call it when a State Police PRO was justifying imposition of strange union dues on people who are never members of an organization and when there is no law that mandates anyone to belong to an association by force?
Can such a police officer say because private security outfits are licensed they should be collecting salaries from Nigeria Police Force? Well, thugs on weekly basis share proceeds of their criminal earnings to some of these security agents and or journalists or broadcasters, so they have been bought to forego their integrity for rascality!
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It was on Thursday; March 3rd, 2022 that motorcycle extortionists sent another struggler; Nura kazeem to grave at Aseese, along Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Ogun State. Ordinarily, transport unions are just aberrations of civil and public servants in some states especially in the South.
The Northerners are mostly law abiding and so the government control parks in most of their areas as recommended by 1999 constitution and Taxes and Levies (Approved list for collection) Act.
The inability of various local and state government executives to understand their simple roles and duties turned them to nonentities at the mercy of touts in the South. The atrocities of these transport unions on the roads are so many that normal people query what could have made governments associate with hoodlums to be oppressing road users with impunity if not affirmation that they are partners-in-crime.
In the meantime, it should be noted that Taxes and Levies (Approved List for Collection) Act 1998 which is the main law that authorizes payment of PAYE and direct assessment in Nigeria stipulates in these sections:
“1.(1)Notwithstanding anything contained in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, as amended, or in any other enactment or law, the Federal Government, State Government and Local Government shall be responsible for collecting the taxes and levies listed in Part I, Part II and Part III of the Schedule to this Act, respectively.
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2.(1)Notwithstanding anything contained in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, as amended, or in any other enactment or law, no person, other than the appropriate tax authority, shall assess or collect, on behalf of the Government, any tax or levy listed in the Schedule to this Act, and members of the Nigeria Police Force shall only be used in accordance with the provisions of the tax laws. (2) No person, including a tax authority, shall mount a road block in any part of the Federation for the purpose of collecting any tax or levy.
3. A person who –(a) collects or levies any tax or levy; or (b) mounts a road block or causes a road block to be mounted for the purpose of collecting any tax or levy, in contravention of section 2 of this Act, is guilty of an offence and liable on conviction to a fine of N50,000 or imprisonment for 3 years or to both such fine and imprisonment”.
Similarly, Personal Income Tax (Amendment) Act 2011 Part XII Section 102 defines tax collector as “(1) For the purpose of this Part of this Act, a tax collector means a duly authorised official of the State Service or the Federal Board of Inland Revenue.
(2) The production by a tax collector of a certificate or warrant- (a) issued by, and having printed thereon the official name of the relevant tax authority; (b) setting out his full name or names; and (c) stating that he is, or is authorised to exercise the functions of a tax collector, shall be sufficient evidence that the tax collector is duly authorised for the purposes of this Act.”
Invariably, no relevant tax authority has power to outsource revenue collection but only assessment and audit and channels of remittance such as REMITA. This shows that only the staff members of the various Internal Revenue Services and the Federal Board of Inland Revenue Service have legal backing to collect taxes on behalf of government.
Therefore, all unions and companies purportedly acting on behalf of some states and local government to collect taxes and levies are illegal and unconstitutional. As a result, Nigerians must start resisting imposition of illegal fees and dubious agents of government on them as most of these usurpers of government roles only enrich themselves and their sponsors at the expense of the government whose name they use to rob complacent citizens and residents.
Similarly, the idea that any union extorting artisans, traders etc is helping government generate tax is a kindergarten and fraudulent claim. Is tax payable daily? If yes, why are all traders including fuel stations, supermarkets, civil servants, etc not paying daily tax? If no, how does daily ticketing amount to tax? Besides, is tax not paid in the name of payer?
Where is the receipt indicating the name of tax payers on the tickets and the amount paid by those collecting tickets? Is the daily ticket without details of payers traceable to government account presentable for tax clearance? If no, then government should stop and people should start resisting the illegality.
Let every tax payer be paying directly to government purse the way they obtain their individual driver license, number plates, road worthiness etc without any union or tout. Specifically in Ogun State, the transport unions have become certified criminals that enjoy senior citizens’ support to oppress masses.
It would be better if the masses reject, at polls, those supporters of their oppressors in the language they understand.
The chief financiers and sponsors of the murderous touts killing innocent strugglers in the name of dubious tickets are the Transport Commissioners, Leadership of State Internal Revenue Service, The House of Assembly Leadership and the Governor Special Assistants or Advisers who have collectively and individually forgotten that one day after they might have left office, these criminals would inflict same hardship on them and their families and then there would not be power for them to abhor and tame the criminality of the transport unions.
Majority of bike riders are elites-undergraduates and postgraduates who struggle to sponsor themselves when no viable job comes from the government and some few bad elements in government turn them to prey for transport union touts.
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How would education be valued when touts can bribe few elites in government with peanuts and have their ways to commit crimes at ease? The elites must start championing now the elimination of these transport union criminals and their atrocities because their failure to do so would soon boomerang and constitute wider security challenge to the entire society.
Of what essence are the revenue officers constitutionally empowered but abandoned by greedy and dubious senior government officials who collect federal allocations and still fraudulently engage their cronies to usurp the internally generated revenue sources of the government for their political agenda?
Many revenue officers groan in silence due to their redundance caused by their bosses who hijack their duties and still give them unrealistic revenue targets. The time for all to resist government illegality in revenue collection in the name of in conjunction with……was now!
EFCC and ICPC should take necessary actions to restore orderliness in revenue collection and safety of lives and properties especially in Ogun, Lagos and Oyo states from the murderous transport unions so that employed civil servants in charge of revenue collection at State and local government levels could be made to be alive to their responsibilities and not blood sucking transport unions enjoying patronage of few criminally-minded in government.
Luqman Soliu,
President,
Rights and Freedom Advocates (RIFA)
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