Bernard Mikko: Jibrin Barau Acted ‘In Error’, ‘On Impulse’ By Suspending The Tax Reform Bills

A former House of Representatives member representing the Khana/Gokana Federal Constituency of Rivers State, Honourable Bernard Mikko, has said that the Presiding Officer of the Nigerian Senate, Senator Jibin Barau, acted in error by impulsively suspending President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Tax Reform Bills which have faced controversies in the Senate.

Honourable Mikko said this in an interview with ARISE NEWS on Friday, where he said that he believed that Barau, although he was in support of the tax reform bills in the beginning, was intimidated by the comments coming from the north opposing the bill, which probably pushed him to suspend the bills impulsively.

Mikko said, “I think the presiding officer, Senator Jibrin Barau is a human being, he’s human. For me, he acted in error by suspending the proceedings of the senate without putting the question. The best he would have done was to put the debate in abeyance on the prompting of the senate leader, who led the debate into the discussions of the bill.

“If he was prompted by the leader of the Senate to suspend the bill, I think the best he would have done was defer the debate to another legislative day, but this was not done. The presiding officer, abruptly, without putting the question, suspended it- I think he acted on impulse, and for me, it was unacceptable, it’s unparliamentarian. This is part of an authoritarian attitude that still lives in some of our people from the military era till this very day, it’s unacceptable.

“I’m happy that the Senate President and the Senate Leader, both of them have corrected the impression. I don’t think the impression came from the media, I think they are trying to spin the situation to become acceptable to Nigerians. I heard Senator Barau announcing the [suspension of the tax bill], and I was shocked beyond my nerves.”

He went on to say, “He (Barau) supported the bill initially, but I think, looking at hindsight, from the comments coming from his section of the country, I think he must have been intimidated by such comments to have acted the way he did.”

“It is only the president who presented the bill that can withdraw the bill. You cannot abruptly suspend- the best thing is, if you have other stakeholders who want to make input, they should come to the public hearing, they can come to committee stage and make their inputs and add to the debate.”

Despite his critique of the suspension, Mikko praised the tax reform bills as he said, “I think it is one of the best tax innovations I have seen in recent times. However, if you look at the clause, looking at, from sections 16 up to 18 of the tax administration bill, it talks of consumption by production, but when you go down to section 22 sub section 12, it was silent. The clause there is attribution and supply. So, my recommendation in this is the replacement of the clause in that section, that attribution should be replaced with computation, and supply should also be replaced with production- I think these are the only areas.

“The general principles of the bill is fantastic, Nigerians are happy, I am very happy. And if you look at the past, the offstream operations has been very opaque, and this has shortcharged the Rivers people to a greater extent where royalties paid to the communities are unknown. The terminals are not metred, and you cannot gauge for certain how much oil has been loaded from the terminal in Rivers State. But with this bill, I think that has cured everything, that you can now say this is the much that will come to- the much royalties that is going to be accrued to the state, and also the communities. So, I commend the president on this, and took exception to the suspension of the bill in the senate.”

While acknowledging potential losses for Rivers State under the new tax framework, Mikko emphasised the need for equity and shared benefits across the federation.

He said, “When I saw comments being made by some stakeholders about some misgivings of the bill, I said to myself, I said, look, if there are people supposed to complain, it should have been Lagos and Rivers State, because Rivers is losing from over 80% to about less than 15% in the new bill. But we can also make up in section 16 of the tax admission bill that deals with upstream operations, because by the time they begin to genuinely compute the amount of royalties paid to states and the communities, I think we can make up. And of course, in every dysfunctional system, some people will benefit. If we have benefitted so much from the past regime, I think we can make up and let us spread the benefits of hindsight for other states.”

“We should give and take, we are in a community of citizens where we live largely in poverty and in penury. So, if we have been endowed by God at this time and we have developed our resources to the extent that we can help others, I think we are prepared to do so,” he added.

Ozioma Samuel-Ugwuezi

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