Edo North Senator and former Edo State Governor, Adams Oshiomhole has called on governors opposing the new tax bills introduced by President Bola Tinubu to engage in negotiations rather than outright rejection.
Speaking as a guest on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Wednesday, Oshiomhole described the bills as critical for national development and emphasized the importance of dialogue in addressing concerns.
The tax reform bills introduced by the Tinubu administration have sparked widespread debate, with many stakeholders, including the 36 state governors under the National Economic Council (NEC), voicing strong opposition.
The 19 northern governors have been particularly vocal, rejecting sections of the bills and calling for their withdrawal from the National Assembly. They argue that the reforms could disproportionately affect their regions and deepen economic inequalities.
Reacting to the opposition of the governors, Oshiomhole said, “If you withdraw it, you have closed the debate. It is better debated at public hearings. We are making these laws for the Nigerian people.
“And therefore it is the Nigerian people who should look at these things constructively and say: ‘Is it in our interest?’ But in the real world, nobody gets what he wants; you get what you negotiate and it is more so in a democracy.”
Oshiomhole also said when debates assume ethnic and religious lines, the first casualty is truth and reason. He, therefore, said talks that the bills when they become laws would favour one region against another, should be discarded.
The lawmaker said a society can be changed either by resolution or reforms, adding that the president has the right to initiate tax reforms.
He, however, said the president should not expect the bills to return to him exactly the way they were presented to the National Assembly.
Oshiomhole said, “I am not a stammerer and debate is for those who can argue. And that is what the parliament is about.
“The good thing is that the president has not sent to us a law; what he has sent to us is a set of proposals under a bill, for us to look at, discuss, debate, if necessary, negotiate, and alter it as we want and pass to him a piece of legislation or bill that attract the two chambers of the National Assembly.
“I will be surprised if the president thinks that whatever he forwarded to the National Assembly, we will back to it the way he proposed it. Even the Appropriation Act, it never goes back the way it came in. I do not know.
“It will be a sad day for democracy if we get to a point in which whatever bill the executive brings to the National Assembly, the National Assembly stamps it and returns it to the executive the way it brought it.”