It is difficult to talk about Bola Tinubu without being harassed, but that shouldn’t be a reason not to express an opinion.
I have never met Bola Tinubu in my life, though we were both in AD while I was a member, a Representative and Deputy Whip of the AD in the NASS.
Other than that, I’ve never been in his camp and I even wrote an article against the LASG then, which I still stand by, when he was expanding the Lekki Expressway. I wrote that a railway would be better, long lasting more productive and improve the living standards of the people. The nightmare that the Lekki roads have become today and worse when Dangote Petrochemicals starts operating, bear me out.
But I understand Nigeria and its politics enough to give an opinion.
Alpha Beta
In my opinion, I do not see anything wrong in Alpha Beta collecting taxes for LASG as it is neither the first, nor an illegal activity, nor the only one of such. It is not the first and if you are old enough, you ought to remember Olusola Adekanola & Co under the military. At a time he was serving 21 states in Nigeria in that capacity. It wasn’t wrong then.
It is not illegal because our tax laws makes provision for such and even the level of fees to be earned. Probably that’s why no one has taken them to court but instead, seek to employ public sentiment against them.
LASG is not the only state using consultants. Almost every state and every party employs tax consultants. This has now been confirmed as last week, ALL STATE GOVERNORS signed a communique to stop using tax consultants.
My disagreement on Alpha Beta has to do with being a monopoly and the owners being too close to the LASG. Those are transparency issues, which one should call LASG’s attention to.
Recently, Chief Bode George came on TV to complain about Alpha Beta collecting 10% of tax collected as their fee and that LASG is being debauched. That’s nice we must always seek the best for our state.
However, Bode George was chairman of NPA and possibly presided over the contract with Intels, allegedly related to Atiku, which allegedly charges NPA 28% of all revenues it collects, keeps the 72% then allegedly deducts all manner of charges from this balance and not remitting, until Bala Usman forced them to do so into the TSA. Even now we read that rather than agreeing, they are in court.
If these are true, isn’t that taking from the whole nation? Why hasn’t Tinubu’s opponents complained about this?
Then the case of the non Lagosians who harass the LASG on the issue: now that it has come out that all states employ tax consultants, why single out Lagos? Another form of hypocrisy?
In a system where we are not matured enough to contribute voluntarily to the funding of political parties, which one is better – the PDP way of awarding phoney contracts or raiding the CBN, and state purses to finance political activities, or the Tinubu way of setting up a legal outfit, trading legally with the state and using the money to fund his politics?
In the old Western Region, the AG party set up a company, NIPC which was doing business with the WNDC and using the money to fund its activities. Chief Awo explained that they got the model from Israel, where the Labour Party did the same, rather than dip their hands directly into the public purse.
You have the right to detest and disagree with Tinubu, but you cannot shout him out of existence or deploy hypocrisy against him. What you can do is to plan and strategizes to defeat him. That will be a major contribution to our political development. It is his right to contest or not to, and if he does, you are entitled to vote or not to and the result can be victory or defeat. I really don’t think he minds anyway as ariwo ki i pa ojo, okiki ki i pa osu.
Whatever his opponents’ opinion of him is, they need to ask themselves, why is he moving and they are moaning? How many of them have kept 10% of their followers since 1999, both in and out of office? There must be something good in him that ensured he kept 100% of his.
When you consider those planning to contest is 2023, Umahi, Yaya Bello, Yerima, Tambuwal/Wike, you will wonder whether, Tinubu is not a better choice.
However, the future of Nigeria does not lie in either being pro or virulently anti Tinubu or in those hypocritical rants of his political opponents, but in the restructuring of:
a) the Nigerian Federation from this unitary and client state structure, and
b) replacing the structure of our governance system from this abhorrent, wasteful and dictatorial presidential system to the more democratic and accountable Westminster system.
In summary, there is the need to go back to the 1963 Constitution with appropriate modifications.
