The National Assembly (NASS) went on a two-month recess on July 24, 2025. They are expected to resume on September 23. In the absence of lawmakers, citizens have had to confront newer life-threatening tax policies of government and the ever-present monster of insecurity. In their absence, citizens thought they had seen the end of Natasha-Gate, that needless frolic in vain glory while the Republic burns.

But last week, major headlines feasted on a fresh back-and-forth between Senator Natasha Uduaghan-Akpoti and the Senate. She has served the six-month suspension imposed by the leadership, and requested to be allowed to resume on September 23. The Senate responded that she cannot because their matter is still in court.

Many citizens think enough time and taxpayers’ resources have been wasted on this contrived face-off. Senator Natasha did not elect herself; she is the representative of the people of Kogi Central. Six months of non-representation is an incalculable loss for the people. They deserve unhindered representation and that is what the Constitution provides.

Meanwhile, insecurity has remained intractable, and hundreds of citizens were killed in the two months the lawmakers were away. On August 19, terrorists attacked a mosque in Unguwan Mantu community, in Katsina State, as the worshippers prayed. According to local sources, “the bandits killed 30 people and burnt 20 others during attacks on nearby villages.” In Zamfara State, kidnappers were reported to have killed at least 35 people, despite payment of ransom for their release.

Reports released on July 29, stated that 56 people were taken from Banga village in Kaura Namoda Local Government in March. The terrorists demanded one million naira per captive. After some back-and- forth, 18 of them were released and the rest murdered. The Local Government chairman, Manniru Haidara Kaura, said most of those killed were “slaughtered like rams.” And they were young people. These people have representatives in the national government at Abuja, but their communities are left ungoverned.

In Borno State, on September 5, 63 civilians were reported killed in Darul Jamal border village with Cameroon. Others were abducted and houses were torched. Five soldiers were among the casualties. The insurgents were reported to have overwhelmed the military base before attacking internally displaced civilians who were recently resettled in Darul Jamal.

Reports say a number of communities in Kwara State are no longer safe for habitation as terrorists have taken charge. The situation is so bad that the people have become helpless. Last week, the Emir of Ilorin and Chairman of the Kwara State Council of Chiefs, Alhaji Ibrahim Sulu-Gambari, had to convoke a special prayer session in his palace to seek divine intervention to the worsening insecurity.

The Commissioner of Police in the state, Adekimi Ojo, was reported to partake in the prayer session. That’s how pathetic and helpless the situation is.

Communities such as Patigi, Oro-Ago, Kaiama and Ekiti are no longer safe for farmers, schoolchildren and travellers. Kidnappers are making good returns from defenceless citizens.

There won’t be space to chronicle all the man-made tragedies that are happening across the states in the past two months. Suffice to say that insecurity in the country has assumed pandemic proportions and lawmakers need to do something different when they resume. It is no longer fashionable for the Federal Government to merely condemn killings inprofitless press statements. It is up to the lawmakers to find a lasting solution to the security challenges in their constituents.

One way to make progress in that regard, is to make a law or laws to decentralise policing. There is close to a consensus among states on the need for state police, in compliance with the concept and tradition of federalism. Some states have outfits that carry out law enforcement activities.

They use state laws to create vigilante groups and similar outfits to manageably fill the gap where the Federal Police is absent or limited. These outfits do not have the force of the real police. They are not well trained and cannot carry sophisticated weapons. They also cannot prosecute offenders on their own. Licensing states to have their own police is arguably the next item on NASS’ agenda. They must not play politics with it.

However, in making state police law, sufficient guardrails must be embedded, to ensure that governors do not turn state police into private armies to hound and annihilate opposition members. They’re doing that already with the Federal Police. They have surplus money to do anything they want. Therefore, the enabling law should make provision for critical stakeholders in the states, including professional bodies, to exercise independent oversight over the activities of state police.

Another area our lawmakers should focus on is the urgency to rescue citizens from the epidemic of taxes and tariffs. They come in different guises. On August 28, the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), announced it had reviewed upwardly the fee for acquiring the Nigerian passport.

The 32-page booklet with five-year validity, was raised from N50,000 to N100,000 and the 64-page booklet with 10-year validity from N100,000 to N200,000. Applicants had barely four days to adjust to the new fees that began on September 1,2025. Apart from the astronomic increase, there was no opportunity to engage with citizens. Too autocratic.

The justification given by the NIS and the Minister of Interior was that they needed to sustain the quality of the e-passport regime, improve delivery and eliminate corruption. In 2024, they made same excuses to justify similar fee increase.

Next year, they will give the same excuse to push another increase, just because nobody speaks for the people. When lawmakers resume, they need to re-examine the extortionate character of this government. Every department and agency of government is on over-drive for taxes and it is not to deliver quality governance.

We do know and hear that some ministers and heads of parastatals have the ambition to contest elections come 2027. Some of them have deployed consultants to bye-pass the civil service structure in the name of enhanced delivery, to smartly divert resources into private pockets. They’re fleecing Nigerians to finance private projects. It is the business of lawmakers to protect citizens from predators in government.

The passport is a legal document to identify who is a citizen of the Federal Republic, before being a travel instrument. It is not a commodity to be traded every year and priced beyond citizen’s financial capacity. The constitutional imperative is to make the passport available and affordable.

The claim that increased tariff will curb corruption is a hollow argument. The integrity of the political leadership is directly proportional to the level of corruption in the system. The integrity of government regulates how citizens and the international community treat our passport. It begins with NIS and the Ministry of Interior. The mere thought of rushing through an increase in passport fees without any form of debate or parliamentary intervention is a product of corruption. Let the lawmakers not allow it to stand.

On their side, the police have been pushing a project to enforce tinted glass permit on vehicles. They want to sell tinted license to motorists and those who have attempted say they were compelled to spend thousands of naira in bribes and extortion. Some say they were charged N16,000 to be captured in one of the few machines available for the exercise. They lament the crowd and the glitches they encounter in attempts to log on to the system online.

The police know that they do not have the technical and personnel capacity to do it. But greed will not let them backdown. They have shifted the enforcement date twice now. However, the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), has charged the police to court, alleging that permit payments are being routed into a private account belonging to Parkway Projects, rather than into the Federation Account or the Treasury Single Account. The NBA also has issues with the legal basis for the exercise, being the subject of a 1991 outdated military decree.

Former Inspectors General of Police (IGPs) have tried to enforce tinted permit. They failed because the arguments to use it to curb insecurity didn’t add up. According to data, there are less than 20 million of such vehicles on Nigerian roads. Many of them belong to governments.

Certainly, those numbers can’t be the only means of transporting insecurity in the country. Terrorists are more accustomed to motorcycles. They don’t need tinted glasses to do damage. If we must deal with insecurity, we have to apply commonsense.

Citizens are apprehensive over the regime of taxes slated to begin in 2026. The story in town is that come 2026, Nigerians must have tax identification numbers before they are allowed to operate bank accounts. Is this tax ID not the same thing as Tax Identification Number (TIN), which has been in place since 2020, but is said to serve same purpose as tax ID, hopefully. There seems to be a lot of misinformation flying around.

More troubling for citizens is the planned five per cent petrol tax that is already part of the new tax laws. If the lawmakers did not detect the surcharge, also referred toas road tax, and bring it up for debate during the tax reform debates, it suggests they were either not thorough, or they were in connivance with the executive to downplay the petrol tax, only to make it public after the tax laws were signed.

Some claim it is a FERMA Act of 2007. Others say President Tinubu in 2003, advocated for governors to challenge the tax, calling it illegal. Now that he is president, every affliction seems legal.

Whatever it is, Nigerians deserve some rest from taxes. When this government removed fuel subsidy, President Tinubu promised to use the savings to build infrastructure. That’s not what’s happening now. Instead, the Federal Government announced it had secured a $747 million syndicated loan to finance the first phase of the Lagos-Calabar coastal highway project.

There’s a load of work awaiting the Senate when it resumes. Let the lawmakers not allow despondent citizens to seek self-help. And Natasha should be the least of their headaches!