…..Nigeria has stumbled into a dangerous legal minefield — and it is called GAZETTE-GATE.
The decision by the National Assembly to re-gazette the controversial tax law should alarm Nigerians far more than it reassures them. Rather than closing the chapter on the dispute, the move has blown it wide open, deepening constitutional confusion and raising troubling questions about legislative integrity.
Under the law, once a bill is passed by the National Assembly, assented to by the President, and gazetted, it becomes binding. The text is settled. Any alteration beyond harmless clerical corrections must return to the legislature for fresh approval and presidential assent. Re-gazetting is not — and cannot be — a backdoor for rewriting the substance of an existing law.
Legal experts warn that re-gazetting is only lawful when correcting minor, non-substantive errors that do not affect rights, penalties, thresholds, appeal conditions, or enforcement powers. The moment such core provisions are touched, a constitutional red line is crossed. At that point, it ceases to be administrative cleanup and becomes unlawful lawmaking.
Even more disturbing is the emergence of three different official versions of the same tax law. One was published by the Federal Ministry of Information, another surfaced on the Fiscal Reforms website, and a third is now being floated through re-gazetting. In law, earlier gazetted versions do not magically disappear. Unless withdrawn by statute or struck down by a court, they remain valid official publications.
The result is chaos.
Taxpayers, regulators, and the courts are now confronted with competing versions of the same statute. Which one applies? Which one can be enforced? That uncertainty alone is enough to stall compliance, invite injunctions, and trigger years of litigation.
More fundamentally, re-gazetting dodges the most serious allegation of all: that a duly passed and assented law was materially altered afterward. If true, this is not a technical slip — it is a grave breach of legislative trust and potentially criminal conduct. Re-gazetting does not answer this charge; it merely attempts to bury it.
Nigeria cannot govern by confusion.
The only responsible path forward is the immediate suspension of the tax law’s enforcement until all discrepancies are resolved. The certified harmonised version actually passed by the legislature must be released to the public, and those responsible for any post-assent alterations must be identified and held accountable.
A nation governed by law cannot operate with multiple official versions of the same statute. Until clarity, legality, and accountability are restored, this tax law lacks both the moral and legal authority to be enforced.
Salihu Tanko Yakasai
From Kano State
Source:@ADCVANGUARD
