neithan

🇳🇬 Dear Nigerians! This may be a long read, but if you can, please read to the end and learn. Yesterday, we reported that the Nigerian Senate formally acknowledged discrepancies in the 2025 tax reform laws and directed the Clerk of the National Assembly to re-gazette the affected Acts and issue Certified True Copies of what was actually passed by lawmakers. That instruction is not a routine correction. It is an admission that Nigerian law was altered after due process had ended. Once an Act has been debated, amended, voted on, transmitted, and assented to, it is no longer a working document. Any post-assent insertion or alteration of substantive provisions is unlawful. When such an altered document is published and treated as binding law, the issue moves from politics into criminality. You will all remember that this matter came into the open on December 17, when Hon. Abdussamad Dasuki disclosed on the floor of the House that the Official Gazette did not align with the Votes and Proceedings. That discrepancy is not cosmetic. It is the legal fault line where forgery begins. We have discussed those altered provisions exhaustively. Follow the thread to see our comments on them. Such changes are not clerical errors. Under the Criminal Code, making or altering a document to pass as genuine law constitutes forgery. Publishing or acting on that altered document is uttering. Where multiple officials participate in or enable the process, conspiracy arises. Where public officers abuse entrusted authority, misconduct in public office applies. The constitutional breach is equally clear. Section 4 of the 1999 Constitution vests legislative power solely in the National Assembly. Any post-assent tampering usurps that authority, violates the separation of powers, and creates parallel and conflicting legal regimes. Enforcement under such conditions lacks legitimacy. Some Nigerians have called this treason. Legally, it is not. Treason requires intent to overthrow the state or wage war. What we are dealing with here is something different but no less dangerous: deliberate institutional subversion of the lawmaking process. Re-gazetting may repair the record, but it does not resolve liability. The central questions remain unanswered: who authorised the insertions, who executed them, and why implementation is still being pushed while the breach is under investigation. If this passes without consequences, it establishes a precedent that any statute can be quietly rewritten after lawmakers have voted and the President has assented. That is incompatible with constitutional democracy. In fact, if you call it constitutional treason, you are right on point.. This is not about inhumane tax policy. It is about whether Nigeria still recognises the rule of law as binding on those in power. Please join this important conversation and continue to demand accountability. Those responsible for altering our laws must face consequences for abusing our laws and attempting to undermine years of democratic progress through greed. This cannot be excused or normalised under any gimmick, guise, or legislative smokescreen. #SuspendTaxReformLaw