Photo: Taiwo Oyedele – ‘no cause for alarm’
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar said on Sunday that discrepancies between the versions of Nigeria’s new tax reform laws published in the official gazette and those passed by the National Assembly amount to a “grave constitutional issue,” warning that any law not reflecting legislative approval is invalid.
Atiku, a leading opposition figure, said in a statement distributed to media outlets that lawmakers in both the Senate and House of Representatives had acknowledged differences in the texts of four tax reform acts signed by President Bola Tinubu in June.
Under Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution, gazetting is an administrative step and does not have the power to alter legislation, Atiku said. “A law that was never passed in the form in which it was published is not law. It is a nullity,” he added.
The controversy erupted in mid-December when House of Representatives member Abdussamad Dasuki alleged that the versions of the tax laws published publicly contained provisions that were not debated or approved by lawmakers. The four acts — including the Nigeria Tax Act 2025 and the Nigeria Revenue Service (Establishment) Act 2025 — are scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2026.
On Friday, Senate President Godswill Akpabio and House Speaker Tajudeen Abbas instructed the National Assembly’s clerk to re-gazette the acts using certified true copies of the versions passed by both chambers, saying the move would restore “clarity, accuracy, and the integrity of the legislative record.”
Atiku criticised what he called an attempt to resolve the matter through a rapid re-gazetting without fresh legislative approval. He said the correct legal remedy would require re-passage of the bills in identical form by both chambers, new presidential assent and proper gazetting.
“Any post-passage insertion, deletion, or modification of a bill without legislative approval amounts in law to forgery,” Atiku said, adding that rushing a re-gazetting while delaying legislative investigation would undermine parliamentary oversight.
The Tinubu administration has insisted that the reforms will be implemented as planned. Taiwo Oyedele, chairman of the Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms Committee, has said the changes aim to simplify compliance and relieve taxpayers.
