Happy New Year, Mr President. Last Monday, I addressed death from the food stampede and your affirmation of market forces’ regulation of market distortions and productivity in the national economy. Today completes the engagement with those issues. I address specifically, accountability in the military and tax reform matters arising from your media chat.

The military is the material force of the state. Our military has had issues of accountability and discipline since the late Chief of Army Staff, General Salisu Ibrahim, was widely quoted for saying that the Nigerian army has become “an army of anything is possible”. It was an army that was prone to coup detat. General Ibrahim’s criticism does not preclude the presence of decent officers and soldiers. The army had decent characters like General Ishola Williams, the late Col. Yohanna Mandaki, Col Abubakar Dangiwa Umar, Col. Gabriel Ajayi, and the late Army Chief, General Chris Alli. Also, it does not undermine the professionalism that the Nigerian army has exhibited over time.

For example, it took the bravery of Nigerian forces to free an Austrian medical unit of ONUC in Bukavu, who was imprisoned by local authorities and refused to release him in defiance of the UN during the Congo Crisis in the 1960s that culminated the elimination of the African patriot and nationalist, Patrice Lumumba by the contrivance of Belgium, U.S. and UK forces.

It should be acknowledged that General Obasanjo, in one fell swoop, purged the army of politicians in uniform. Nevertheless, the Fourth Republic has turned the military into a Bonapartist formation. Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, not General Napoleon who overthrew the Directory and restored the monarchy under his personalised rule. I refer to the one who succeeded to power in the French Second Republic and dissolved the constitutional order under which he rose to power and declared himself emperor as Napoleon III. He infiltrated the army and corrupted it.

Karl Marx, who chronicled and analysed that event in his Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, observed how Emperor Bonaparte handled the French army thus: “As a fatalist, he lives in the conviction that there are certain higher powers which man, and the soldier in particular, cannot withstand. Among these powers he counts, first and foremost, cigars and champagne, cold poultry and garlic sausage. According to begin with, he treats officers and non-commissioned officers in his Elysee apartments to cigars and champagne, cold poultry and garlic sausage.”

In the fourth republic, fear of a coup has led to the aggrandisement of the officer corps, not the soldiers, with luxurious cars and pecuniary gifts. Who accounts for and audits the annual appropriation for defence? The compromise of the army by various forms of identity politics allowed the festering of insurgencies in some parts of the country.

Rather than rise to the patriotic duty and nip it in the bud, the counter-insurgency measures have become an Automated Teller Machine (ATM), apologies to Kole Shettima of the MacArthur Foundation. Recall the case of Brigadier-General Enitan Ransome-Kuti, armed with poor equipment, had to conduct a strategic retreat with his men at the line of engagement in Baga instead of wasting the lives of his soldiers. The consequence was his incarceration and premature retirement from the army.

The rot in the army got so bad under the Buhari Administration that service chiefs were awarding federal projects to their hometown, Army University in Biu, and Air Force University in Bauchi. For fear of coup detat, the officer corps has been over-pampered. A professional soldier is happier riding in his Land Rover and sundry combat vehicles than SUVs. It is not the mode for battled-ready officers and soldiers. If Nigerians were to be at war with another country today, do we have adequate platforms to fight? This was the concern of the media men who broached the issue of accountability in the defence sector. One hopes that Lt Gen Olufemi Oluyede, the new Chief of Army Staff will restore accountability and discipline the military. I salute our men in uniform for their emerging zeal to deal ruthlessly with insurgents in the country. God speed!

On tax reform, I am on the same page with you, Mr President. I have read sundry commentaries on the matter. The controversial areas are infinitesimal. The noises are more or less media hype than reasoned arguments. The opposition is coming from the North West and North East geopolitical zones. Most wished for the continuation of the Lugardian Estate run by robbing Peter to pay Paul; and the perpetuation of free-booting without looking at the merits of the engrossed bills. For example, Bauchi State Governor, Bala Mohammed, alleged that the Tax Reforms Bills are aimed at favouring just a section of the country while short-changing northern Nigeria. He then threatened that the North would show its true colour and double down to a fight.

On his part, Hon Mustapha Tijjani Ghali of New Nigerian Peoples Party (NNPP) representing Gaya, Ajingi and Albasu Federal Constituency, Kano State in the Federal House of Representative is opposed to the reform not because it will not benefit his state but that it is disadvantageous to sister states in the north, namely,  Jigawa, Kaduna, Katsina, Zamfara, Sokoto, and Kebbi.

He talked about the lop-sidedness of the tax reform and that the fact that he had been lobbied to support the bill by a southern legislator “…indicates that these people have an ulterior motive. The good thing is that all northern legislators have all sat and are working towards containing the issue. We all have our priorities from the people we are representing. Your interest should not be against the other region. This is why we are telling people to stop fighting for political differences but for the success of our region.” He argued further that “Countries across the world have implemented the tax reform bill and it is working for them.

But at what point? You have to provide a conducive environment and development such as employment, hospitals, schools and other social amenities for the populace.”

Despite the cacophony of voices from those sections of the country, I found the position of the Ibrahim Shekarau-led League of Northern Democrats (LND) as the most informed. They did a thorough analysis of the bills and adverted to four major areas of discontent.  In his opening remarks to the group’s dialogue on tax reform, Shekarau noted that ⁠”The proposed tax reform initiative of the president is a bold attempt to address Nigeria’s long-standing challenges with fiscal inefficiency, a narrow tax base and inequities in revenue generation and allocation.

Collectively, the four bills seek to broaden the tax base, simplify compliance, improve revenue collection and strengthen fiscal federalism. These reforms, if properly implemented, have the potential to transform Nigeria’s economy, unlocking opportunities for growth and development.” He went further to underline areas of discontent, namely, Equity and Burden Distribution, implementation feasibility, Impact on the Informal Sector, Revenue Allocation imbalance and Risk of Over-Taxation. These are plain enough for comprehension.

The outcome of the dialogue revealed four salient points that I think Mr President must look at. One is the need to clarify the derivation clause in the allocation, and to place emphasis on the point of consumption (attributable tax) to the de-emphasis on the company host locations. Two is the family income with its composite nature and now to be tax compliant under the reform bills. The provision conflicts with the two major religions in the country and impinges on inheritance practice and attempts at its introduction in the past had been repealed.

Third is the sunset provisions on agencies like TETFund, NITDA, NASENI, and the consequent transfer of a consolidated development levy of 2% to the NELFund. LND noted the key roles that these institutions play in the development of tertiary education and research and the spreading of digital literacy and skills. This is a good observation and a matter that the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) should be interested in.

The fourth is the fate of the informal sector which constitutes about 58.20% of Nigeria’s GDP. LND raised the problem of administration and burden. I think the reform already anticipated this and addressed taxable income above the threshold of one million and above. These underlined discontents are resolvable through dialogue. Mr. President, tread on the path of dialogue, and things will be fine.

Prof. Akhaine lectures at the Department of Political Science, Lagos State University.