Governor Bala Mohammed’s Unstatemanlike Utterances!
By Sir Don Ubani; KSC, JP
Tuesday (Nkwo)31-12-2024.
The Office of a State Governor is a very important one, and demands responsibilities that are beyond the ordinary. In Nigeria, the Office is a creation of the Constitution. Section 176 of 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, as amended, establishes that Office. Many other Sections of the Constitution, 177, 178, 180, 181, 182, and so on, buttress the strategic importance of the Office of a State Governor.
Except under abnormal situations and circumstances, it is expected that an occupant of the Office of a State Governor should be of a sound mind, reasonable, knowledgeable, broad-minded, urbane, altruistic and patriotic. It is not a position that should be occupied by a parochial small-minded bigot. It is not meant for someone who has just been pulled out of a gutter with a very discomforting putrid stench.
There is hardly any person in Nigeria that does not know that the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, inherited almost a completely destroyed economy from his predecessor, General Muhammadu Buhari, 2015-2023. President Buhari was so parochial and ethnic driven that he pursued only two goals, Fulanization and Islamisation. While tens of thousands of Christians and Indigenous Peoples were being slaughtered by fulani terrorists in the North of Nigeria, Buhari pretended that nothing awful was happening. No body was spared in ethnic cleansing by the Fulani terrorists, including the Hausa who were conquered and subdued by the invading Fulani, led by their leader, Usman Dan Fodio, in 1804.
By the time President Tinubu took over the reins of power on May 29, 2023, it was obvious Nigeria was at the nadir of both political and economic squalor. Things had almost fallen apart, and the Centre was finding it extremely difficult to hold.
President Tinubu has taken the bull by the horn by announcing and pursuing some radical Policies that may not be very popular with the Citizens but which will eventually pull the country out of its quagmire. One of such Policy Thrusts is the removal of Fuel Subsidy which he announced on the day he was sworn-in. That was a clear indication he was prepared for the job. The subsidy regime in Nigeria was characterized by corruption. It was an exercise that unjustifiably enriched very few Businessmen but rendered the rest of Nigerians hopelessly impoverished.
In removing the fuel subsidy, President Tinubu made sure that money that was being corruptly syphoned through that regime was channelled to the State Governments. Fiscal allocations to State Governments became tripled or even more. If the State Governors were honest and sincere, the Citizens would not feel any negative effect of the removal of Fuel Subsidy because the President has been consistent in making sure money is excessively pumped into the States.
Apart from the monies unprecedentedly allocated to the State Governments, President Tinubu has been working all round the clock to make sure that some moribund Oil Refineries in the country are brought back to functionality. There are strong signs that Port-Harcourt and Warri Refineries have shown signs of recovery. Already, a privately-owned Refinery, Dangote Refinery, has started selling petroleum products, and that has gone some steps reducing prices of fuel. There is optimism.
Still driven by his populist policies, President Tinubu had to take the issue of Fiscal Allocation to Local Government Councils to the Supreme Court for determination. In a landmark Judgment, the Supreme Court on Wednesday (Orie) 10th July, 2024, ruled and ordered that Monetary Allocations meant for the 774 Local Government Councils in Nigeria should be released directly to the Third Tier Governments by the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee, FAAC.
Of course, the essence of that legal intervention by the Presidency was to curb the greedy excesses of most of the State Governors who hid under a deliberately misinterpreted notion of Constitutional Provision of State Joint Accounts Allocation Committee, JAAC, to interfere in a very depletive manner in allocations meant for the Local Government Councils. That unpatriotic voracious interference by most of the State Governors has been the reason why there has been no development and employment in the grassroots, with avoidable consequences of hunger, youth restiveness, and an unprecedented crime wave in Nigeria.
Under the present Administration of President Tinubu, what the Local Governments receive from FAAC is more than 300% of what they were receiving before the emergence of President Tinubu and subsequent removal of the Subsidy on Petrol.
Except, again, that majority of the State Governors are infested with incurable avarice and kleptomania, and have continued to handle Local Government Funds, including their internal revenues, as their personal resources, Nigerians should have no cause to feel any pains as a result of removal of the Petroleum Subsidy.
From next January (2025), it is expected that Allocations to the Third Tier of Government will be made directly to them by FAAC. Already, one State Governor has greedily compelled the State House of Assembly to make a law that allows the State Government to dictate how how funds accruing to the Councils will be used. This is quite disingenuous and against the Judgment of the Supreme Court on Fiscal Autonomy for Local Government Councils in Nigeria.
Under normal circumstances, it will be expected that the Council Administrations should boldly resist this unlawful interference by those selfish Governors. It is very easy to be liberated from the grip of such Governors. What a Local Government Chairman should do is to carry the Councillors sincerely along with him and make sure that at any given time, he enjoys the trust and confidence of, at least, 80% of them. When there is such rapport, and evidence of committment to providing adequate dividends of democracy to the electorate, no Governor shall be able to tamper with the Chairman’s tenure. The resultant effect will be effective deployment of resources meant for the People to their advantage, which will eventually reflect on the development of the grassroots.
Still focused on the Economy, President Tinubu, in early October 2024, transmitted four Reform Bills on Tax to the National Assembly. They are; (1) Nigeria Tax Bill 2024,
(2) Tax Administration Bill
(3)Nigeria Revenue Service Establishment Bill, and
(4) Joint Revenue Board Establishment Bill.
A critical look at the Bills easily depicts, not only the President’s honest intentions to strengthen the country’s Economy but goes a long way to indicate that the President has a formidable Think Tank. The Bills, in essence, will put a stop to multiple or even duplication of taxes. Citizens of low income will be exempted from taxation. Business entities that generate les than N50,000,000.00 per annum will be excluded from paying tax, just to encourage Enterprise and Productivity.
What appears to be the only grey area in the Tax Reform Bills is in the administration of Value Added Tax, VAT. While the relevant Bill implies that VAT will be determined by its place of production, some critics hold the opinion that distribution of VAT should be based on location or area of consumption of the product upon which VAT is calculated.
As it has always been known, Tax has never been a friendship-generating issue. That is why Tax Collectors are always hated by the society. The Bible tells the story of Zacchaeus, a Chief Tax Collector, who was hated by the Jews. But they are smart persons. That was why when Zacchaeus wanted to have a glimpse of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and knowing he was a very short man, he had to climb a sycamore fig-tree, and he succeeded in plan. It is also hoped that the Think Tank behind the Tax Reform Bills will also succeed.
It is not unusual for controversies to be generated because of issues of tax. But in a sane society, such disputations can always be resolved on a conference table or intellectually. It does not call for any threat or resort to use of vulgar language.
It was, therefore, disgustingly disappointing that a Man so elevated to be a State Governor, Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State, could condescend to primitivity and bestiality of threatening a sitting President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, just because of his different view on the Tax Reform Bills.
If Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State has any discomfort with any aspect of the Bill, as a privileged elite and Governor of a State, should anything prevent him from sending his contrary opinion to the National Assembly?
For the Governor to have threatened the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria that ‘the North will show him their true colour’ was completely absurd, crude and an exhibition of lack of knowledge in matters of Constitutional Democracy. He simply behaved like someone who had gone to school but failed to acquire required education.
To begin with, Bauchi State Government is said to have received about One Hundred and Forty-four Billion Naira, under the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR.
What evidence does Governor Bala Mohammed have of prudent deployment of such huge resources in the overall interest of the people of Bauchi State?
Bauchi State is one of the States that avoidably contributed to Nigeria being the World Capital of Poverty. With N144b, how many Small Scale Industries has Governor Bala Mohammed been able to set up, as to reduce youth unemployment and restiveness?
What innovation has Bala Mohammed, as Governor of Bauchi State, initiated to create a friendly, attractive and conductive educational environment that can seamlessly remove thousands of Child-beggars, otherwise known as Almajiris, from the streets of Bauchi town, and all over Bauchi State?
What can Governor Bala Mohammed showcase as his achievements in the Health Sector in Bauchi State?
As a Governor that has received very huge monetary allocations from President Tinubu’s Government, how many Skill Acquisition Centres has Governor Bala Mohammed built in Bauchi State, to empower the Youths of Bauchi State?
Again, which North is Bala Mohammed claiming ‘will show their true colour to President Tinubu’? Is it the North where Christians, Hausa, and other Indigenous Peoples have been subjected to the worst form of slaughtering by Fulani terrorists, without any eyebrow raised by Mr Bala Mohammed, who, himself, is a fulani?
It is certain that the likes of Bala Mohammed have ignorantly chosen to live in the ignoble darkness of their past. The North in contemporary Nigeria is, in every way, sharply different from the North of Sir Ahmadu Bello, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, and even the North of General Muhammadu Buhari, that watched over the massive killing of non-fulani in the North, without even a mere verbal condemnation!
Under the present dynamics in the North, where Hausa People are being killed, mained and driven away from their ancestral homes by terrorist fulani, Bala Mohammed is surely misguided and deceived in his euphoria of ‘the North showing their true colour to President Tinubu’.
It is, therefore, suggested that the National Assembly should go ahead with the required legislative procedure to have the Tax Reform Bills holistically, equitably and fairly looked into, and pass it into Law, in the overall interest of Nigeria’s Economy. Characters like Bala Mohammed should not be allowed to constitute a clog on the wheel of progress.
Sir Don Ubani is a former Commissioner for Information and Strategy in Abia State and writes from his native Asa land beautifully located between Aba in Abia State and Port-Harcourt in Rivers State.
