This man called President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is painstakingly doing an architectural redesign of Nigeria’s economic foundations.
He has chosen to be the scapegoat and anyone who understands Nigeria’s structural problems should be grateful that a Bola Tinubu is President of Nigeria today.
This is a President who appears not to be bothered about re-election politics and moves like one ready to sacrifice his immediate personal political interests for the long-term health and survival of his dear country.
At the moment and in the foreseeable future, his attempt to solidify the foundation of this federalist state called Nigeria would bring about pains – a lot of it actually.
It took us long to enter into the ditch, we must not expect to get of the ditch overnight or in four years. To cure this pain, we must finish the treatment. We must not stop halfway. The World Bank, an institution we love to hate, said this much recently. And they are very right on this.
It takes a President who is not afraid to lose elections to do the unpalatable foundation jobs required to fix Nigeria. President Bola Tinubu has continued to lay the institutional foundations that many feel are impossible or suicidal to pull off. I will enumerate some of the major ones, which justify why I so much believe in the abilities of President Bola Tinubu to succeed – it’s not a blind faith.
1. Tax and Fiscal Reforms: This was one of Tinubu’s earliest moves. Just like what Tinubu did when he became Lagos governor, his first major policy move was to reform the revenue and tax administration system in Nigeria. He set up the Tax and Fiscal policy Reforms committee headed by Taiwo Oyedele and in less than a year they delivered a great job, which has metamorphosed into the Economic Stabilisation Bills (ESB) currently before the NASS.
Through these bills, Tinubu wants to amend about 15 different tax, fiscal, and establishment laws to facilitate economic stability and set the country on the path for sustained inclusive growth. On Oct 3, the President forwarded four executive bills to the NASS.
These bills are the Nigeria Tax Bill, Nigeria Tax Administration Act (Amendment) bill; Nigeria Revenue Service Bill and Joint Revenue Board (Establishment ) Bill. When passed into law, these bills would among other things help to harmonize the multiple tax laws in the country with the big one being the stripping of Customs, NIMASA, Immigration, NPA and other revenue generating agencies the powers to collect revenues. Revenue collection through NRS would reduce the cost of collection drastically and increase efficiency of revenue collection by blocking many leakages and applying centralised innovations.
Customs and co would be made to focus on their core duties. FIRS would be rebranded to Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS) which would collect all taxes that should go to the federation account. Each tier of government would then get its own share. In fact Tinubu wants FG’s share of VAT revenue to shrink to 10% from the current 15%. He wants the subnationals to have more revenue to finance new powers donated to them in the second schedule of the 1999 constitution (as amended). Most importantly, these tax reforms would see 90% of income earners and small businesses in Nigeria being exempted from taxes. In another clime, this would be celebrated a landmark legacy.
2. Full deregulation of PMS: Despite the accompanying enormous discomfort on many aspects of our economic life, President Tinubu has been focused on achieving full deregulation of the downstream oil sector. It appears that he has achieved this milestone because today, Dangote Refinery is selling PMS to any willing buyer. NNPC Ltd is no longer the sole off taker of PMS from Dangote Refinery neither are they the sole importer of the product. NNPC is selling PMS and other petroleum products at the prevailing market price.
