SINCE the presentation of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu (PBAT)’s tax reform bills to the National Assembly, there has been an uneasy calm in the nation.
Rejected by the National Economic Council (NEC), the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF) and various Northern pressure groups, and the insistence by PBAT and the leadership of the National Assembly to railroad the bills through the legislative processes, the debates on the tax reform bills have unduly heated the polity.
Since politics is the authoritative allocation of values in society, political fisticuffs are inherent in democratic societies. In diverting petroleum subsidy values from the people to the mafia in the oil industry and the governors, the resistance of the people has been neutralised. But in diverting VAT values away from the powerful, Nigerian governors have taken up the gauntlet. But who would retreat in the battle of the titans? The bigger titans in Abuja or the smaller ones in the states?
Governors Bala Mohammed and Babagana Gana Zulum have been highly critical of the tax bills, setting particularly the former on a collision course with the Tinubu regime. The media is recently awash with accusations that Governor Mohammed threatened PBAT, and his defiant retort that he can’t be intimidated on his position on the tax bills.
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Had the governors earlier realised that PBAT is a different political kettle, unlike the accommodative President Goodluck Jonathan and the novice President Muhammadu Buhari (PMB), unaccustomed to dirty political fights, they wouldn’t have allowed him to dominate the Executive branch and the National Assembly as well.
Unlike PMB who seemed disinterested in fixing his minions as leaders of the National Assembly, or was outsmarted by the Senator Bukola Saraki group, underscoring that he wouldn’t be an excessively powerful president, PBAT spared no effort to impose his surrogates as Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives (HoR) reflecting his desire to effectively dominate the national political space, as he absolutely dominated Lagos politics for almost three decades.
Had the governors been interested in the emergence of an independent National Assembly leadership, they would have proactively fought the imposition of National Assembly leadership by the president – senators and members of HoR would have been allowed to independently elect their leaders. But as the APC was plotting against the emergence of an independent National Assembly leadership, in deference to their party, the APC governors didn’t anticipate that the chickens of the thick political plot would sooner than later come home to roast.
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And the PDP governors didn’t play any role to thwart the imposition, like PBAT, all the governors were busy imposing their candidates as speakers of state houses of assembly in their respective states. With a duly servile National Assembly leadership, it is only a matter of time for a winner to emerge in the political faceoff.
Since politics is the authoritative allocation of values in society, political fisticuffs are inherent in democratic societies. In diverting petroleum subsidy values from the people to the mafia in the oil industry and the governors, the resistance of the people has been neutralised. But in diverting VAT values away from the powerful, Nigerian governors have taken up the gauntlet. But who would retreat in the battle of the titans? The bigger titans in Abuja or the smaller ones in the states?
Like the president, Senator Bala Mohammed is also not known to easily lose his fights. In his rage of fury, he fights not only his peers and subordinates, but takes on the elderly. Alhaji Bello Kirfi, the former octogenarian Waziri of Bauchi lost his fight with Senator Mohammed.
The biggest titan in Abuja hasn’t been known to lose his battles. From his fight with the American authorities, regional fight to step into the shoes of the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the titan of Western politics, the initial attempts to ditch him as the successor to PMB, to the legal fights to thwart his electoral “victory”. As president, he only lost his fight with the Confederate Generals in Burkina Faso, Niger, and Mali, who ditched ECOWAS for AES.
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A political strategist segments his fights, confronting one segment at a time, and in the process, attracting the sympathy of the detached onlooking segments. After vanquishing one segment, he takes up the others one at a time.
When PBAT fought the Nigerian people by withdrawing fuel subsidies, Nigerian governors were detached from the fight, sympathetic to PBAT, because they would benefit from the windfall from the subsidy savings. Conscious of victory on the tax bills, with his political generals in the National Assembly and the APC, his earlier victory on subsidy withdrawal emboldened him to fight as many segments as possible at the same time on the new tax bills.
The fight between Kaura and PBAT would have been spectacular, if their last tenure would end on 29th May 2031. Unfortunately, the last term of Kaura would end four years before that of PBAT, losing his immunity four years before the president. The good political strategist he is, Kaura would retreat from the fight at the right and critical moment. If he is lucky to be garbed with presidential immunity as president or vice president, on the day his gubernatorial Immunity would end, he would be spared the backlash of his fight with PBAT.
Like the president, Senator Bala Mohammed is also not known to easily lose his fights. In his rage of fury, he fights not only his peers and subordinates, but takes on the elderly. Alhaji Bello Kirfi, the former octogenarian Waziri of Bauchi lost his fight with Senator Mohammed.
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But is it a foretaste of future defeat in the fight with the Big Titan which made Senator Mohammed to elevate the fight to another realm?
Trending in social media is Kauran Bauchi seeking the intervention of Sheikh Yahaya Jingir, a leading religious figure to intervene in the faceoff between Nigerians and their governors fighting the new tax bills, and PBAT, Senator Akpabio, Abbas and the APC high command insisting that the bills have come to stay. Falling back on the religious realm to resolve a political fight underscores Kaura’s loss of interest in continuing the fight.
The fight between Kaura and PBAT would have been spectacular, if their last tenure would end on 29th May 2031. Unfortunately, the last term of Kaura would end four years before that of PBAT, losing his immunity four years before the president. The good political strategist he is, Kaura would retreat from the fight at the right and critical moment. If he is lucky to be garbed with immunity as president or vice president, on the day his gubernatorial immunity would end, he would be spared the backlash of his fight with PBAT.
Jahun, a commentator on public affairs writes from Dutse, Jigawa State Capital. He can be reached via email@ aminuhabibu58@gmail.com
