₦airaland Forum

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu held a private working lunch with French President Emmanuel Macron today at the Élysée Palace in Paris. #PBATInFrance

Okoroawusa:
Bro, you are talking to a bot. Have you not noticed its activities since it was activated?

naptu2:
Meanwhile, I was against the demolition of the toll plazas. Government spent a lot of money to build them and they could be useful in future, why spend money to demolish them again?

And the current government has talked about reintroducing the tolls, which would mean spending money to build new toll plazas, when we had already spent money to build them in the past and then spent money to demolish them again.

Labour unions give Obasanjo ultimatum on fuel tax

8 January 2004

ABUJA
Nigerian trade unions have threatened to call a fresh general strike on 21 January unless President Olusegun Obasanjo repeals a controversial new fuel tax within two weeks.

Announcing the ultimatum on Wednesday, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) said the 1.5 naira (US $0.01) per litre of fuel tax that came into effect on 1 January was illegal and unacceptable.

The powerful NLC groups 29 blue collar unions covering both the public and private sectors. It include key unions in Nigeria's lifeblood oil industry. The NLC forced the government to back-track on a steep rise in petrol prices last year after it called an eight-day general strike at the end of June.

Petrol prices have risen up to 12 percent since 1 January because the introduction of the new tax was accompanied by a further liberalisation of fuel prices. Petrol in Lagos now costs between 43 and 45 naira (43 and 45 US cents) per gallon.

“Since we cannot bear this hardship indefinitely, we shall resume the general strike and protest within two weeks,” Adams Oshiomhole, president of the NLC told reporters. “The fuel tax is illegal because it lacks the necessary legislative backing for its enforcement. It's illegal for the government to insist that people pay taxes that are illegal,” he added.

The tax was included in a budget appropriation bill sent to parliament in December. However, the government has ordered that the tax become effective from 1 January even though the legislature has yet to pass the bill into law.

Several prominent legislators, including the Senate President Adolphous Wabara and Speaker of the House of Representatives Bello Masari have expressed opposition to the the tax. But Obasanjo insists that it is needed to raise funds for the maintenance and repair of the country’s decaying road network.

Fuel prices rose last year by more than 50 percent after the government first abolished subsidies on imported fuel and later allowed prices to be determined by market forces under its economic deregulation programme. Most Nigerians see cheap fuel as one of the few benefits they have derived as successive regimes mismanaged the country’s oil riches. However Obasanjo is keen to abolish expensive state subsidies on fuel which have simply encouraged smuggling to neighbouring countries where prices are much higher. He also wants to raise domestic fuel prices to international market levels in order to facilitate the privatisation of Nigeria's decaying refineries, which are functioning at a fraction of their original capacity and are unable to meet domestic demand.

Your Fuel Tax is Illegal Lawyers Tell Obasanjo

By Adewale Busari
30 December 2003

Lagos — A cross section of legal practitioners have thrown their weight behind Governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu's decision to drag the Federal Government to court over the proposed fuel tax contained in next year's budget, currently before the National Assembly.

Governor Tinubu yesterday threatened to drag the Olusegun Obasanjo administration to court if the fuel tax is implemented.

naptu2:
Meanwhile, for those that are saying that the petrol tax was imposed by Obasanjo.

He imposed it, but the NLC went on strike and several people sued the government. The court ordered that the tax should be suspended and the government suspended it.

That's why the FERMA Act 2007 says that implementation of the tax will begin at the date to be determined by the finance minister

FG Withdraws Fuel Tax, NLC Leaders Await Implementation, Meet Today
https://allafrica.com/stories/200401210282.html

nedekid:
Are you government, why have you taken it upon yourself to explain the rubbish 5% to the extent of advising people to approach legislator? Or is this a case of work no pay?

casualobserver:
Please show where the government ever said they were implementing it.

It is illiterates, naysayers and deliberate saboteurs that deliberately spread misinformation about the tax law.

Anyone who read the bill knew there was no 5% petrol tax coming in January. So you wonder if our people are so dull that they read but don’t understand what they reading or they have an ulterior motive. That a trade Union would even make such a statement questions their motive. Did they not read the tax bill?

AMINDA:
Typical response when cornered. Same legislators that had their budgets increased from 150 billion to over 370 billion? They are now a parastatal under Tinubu. Let him continue to impose devastating taxes on the populace to test the limit of their endurance. The Nepalese government were also arrogant in their posturing until the people had enough.

naptu2:
In the simplest English possible, one of the reasons for the creation of the new tax law is to harmonise all other tax laws. There were so many taxes in so many different laws and they decided to put everything in one law. That's all that happened.

They are not imposing a new petrol tax and they are not implementing the old one. What the government has been talking about is reintroducing the toll plazas, not petrol tax.

Tinubu’s government to reintroduce toll gates on Lagos-Ibadan expressway, second Niger Bridge and others
https://metrodailyng.com/tinubus-government-to-reintroduce-toll-gates-on-lagos-ibadan-expressway-second-niger-bridge-and-others/

AMINDA:
"Tinubu didn't introduce the 5% tax on fuel, he only wants to implement it" - Batists

The 5% tax is now redundant and should be scrapped because as at when it was introduced, government was still paying subsidy on fuel. Even at that, Tinubu was against it then, and it was suspended. They told us proceeds from removal of subsidy will go towards infrastructure. Where are the infrastructure? Will the 5% tax replace tolling or will the roads still be tolled after imposing 5% tax on fuel?

The road cost a total of 170 million naira (nearly 266 million dollars). And to recover at least part of that cost, and to pay for its upkeep, road users will have to pay a toll. Even at the opening ceremony, Brigadier Shehu Yar'Adua led the way in paying for the service the new expressway offers."