Video: Tax laws: Oyedele urges systemic fixes to prevent errors
Chairman of the Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms Committee, Mr. Taiwo Oyedele
The Chairman of the Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms Committee, Taiwo Oyedele, has called for urgent reforms to Nigeria’s legislative processes, blaming a series of manual “hands-off” stages for potential errors in the recent harmonization and gazetting of new tax laws, rather than finger-pointing between branches of government.
Video: Tax laws: Oyedele urges systemic fixes to prevent errors
In an interview with Channels TV, Oyedele dismissed narratives pitting the executive against the legislature, insisting the real culprit is systemic.
“I do not think that this is a legislative versus executive conversation,” he said.
“I think it’s a process and a system issue that has to be addressed, and I don’t think it is about finger-pointing or looking for who to blame.”
He detailed the multi-step journey of a bill—from lawmakers’ notes in the House of Representatives and Senate, to harmonization, certification via the Ministry of Justice, presidential assent, reformatting for gazette standards, and final routing through the Ministry of Information.
“There are lots of stages with manual hands-offs that anything can go wrong,” Oyedele explained, noting the lack of robust quality assurance at each phase.
Oyedele urged turning the controversy into an opportunity.
“My preference is maybe we shouldn’t waste this crisis and use that as an opportunity not only to identify if anything had gone wrong in this case that’s substantial, but address them but more importantly to strengthen the process going forward. So when we have laws, we know these laws have not been tampered with in any way, form or shape.”
Addressing claims that high-profile figures like the President, Senate President, and House Speaker were present at the signing, he pushed back sharply.
“If you are there when they’re signing the law, you can’t read 400 pages just because we have that. That’s a process for,” he said, advocating patience for ongoing investigations while prioritising systemic fixes—not just for tax bills, but all future legislation.
The comments come amid scrutiny over discrepancies in the gazetted versions of Nigeria’s new tax laws, signed into effect earlier this year, with stakeholders awaiting probe
