Former Minority Leader in the House of Representatives, Dr. Wunmi Bewaji, speaks on various national issues, including the new Tax Regime, worsening insecurity, that has brought about US intervention, the wave of defections to ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), the coalition African Democratic Congress (ADC), in this interview with some newsmen. BOLA BADMUS brings these excerpts:
Question: How do you see the country, which way are we moving right now, what is the state of the nation?
Answer: Okay, we are so happy that the country is moving in the right direction. The reforms are working, especially the Free Market Economy reform has worked out wonderfully well under this administration. When you look at the limited application of that in the area of removal of fuel subsidy which today now we see the competition going on among the market players, between Dangote Refinery as a local producer and the importers, the marketers who are importing from abroad, now they are competing. Today, Dangote is reducing prices, tomorrow, the importers are also trying to reduce their prices and you see this competition going on now which is leading to a gradual reduction in prices of petroleum products.
And you we see that because its a free market breeding economic process, you will see that more players are going to enter into the market and which will further drive down prices. So this would guarantee two things which are very critical in any free market reform. It would guarantee sustainable availability and it would also guarantee affordability and once we are able to achieve a perfect equilibrium between those two, then Nigeria would be better for it.
The beauty of this is that this has no government intervention which means that the market is operating by itself, the government is not subsidizing by a penny. So that means that it is sustainable, it is not something that we can wake up tomorrow and somebody might say oh, government has announced an increase in price of petrol or maybe the government can complain that the amount of money we are spending on subsidy is too much, we are going to reduce it this year. That is never going to happen again and that is why you see that last two Decembers we have had under this new reforms, there has not been any petrol scarcity again.
So that is commendable and what you also see in the area of foreign exchange. The unification that has happened within a space of less than 18 months, the unification of the rates of exchange that we've had under Emefiele. Yes, we had four exchange rates. So under that regime, the level of corruption was extremely high and it was denominated by currency arbitrage and the unpatriotic crime of round tripping.
You found people who are connected to the Central Bank, and who can get the dollar at a particular official rate and go and offload on the streets at the parallel market. Today now, nobody is talking about the parallel market any longer because the rates are merged. So currency arbitrage is out and so as we speak today, the dollar has now come below N1,400, and today I think it is N1,380. By the time we move towards May, June, then we are going to discover that eventually our foreign reserve is now above $46bn, for the first time in 10 years.
Between now and June, we are definitely going to be about the $50bn mark and that would be huge for economic stability.
Question: What do you say about this new Tax Regime introduced in the country by President Bola Tinubu as Nigerians are complaining against the backdrop that the country is not really into production?
Answer: Well what we call a new Tax Regime is not a new Tax Regime. Why? This is because the new Tax Law has not introduced a single, new Tax. There is no single new tax. What the Law has done is to bring together all the various laws that we have had, relating to taxes.
Many of them have been implemented before and let me explain the meaning of the Tax Regime to you. Before now, Nigeria operated what we called a regressive tax regime, so a regressive tax regime is one where the poor pay more than the rich. If we say the rate of tax now is let's say 10 percent, if I have N10,000 so it is10percent of N10,000. If you take 10 percent from my N10,000, that would be N1000. So if you apply that 10 percent to somebody that has N10million, it means he would pay N1million which is 10percent of the sum. If someone who earns N10 million pays N1 million, he has N9million left. The man with N10,000 who paid N1000 has N9000 left. So the effect on the man who has N9million left would not be much. The man with N10,000 and who is now left with just N9,000 might be struggling with feeding, he doesn't even know what to do with his life. So, that's the meaning of regressive tax regime.
We move from the regressive tax regime to a progressive tax regime. So a progressive tax regime says okay, if you are earning from this to this, it is at less say 2 percent. If you move from that to this, it would be at 5 percent, and that if you move from that to this, it would be 10 percent, and then from that to this, there would be an increase. So that is progressive.
It is like the more you earn, the higher the percentage of tax you will pay. The beauty of this is that you will discover the structure and the analysis of the tax payers in Nigeria would reveal that 95 percent of Nigerian taxpayers, actually earn less than this benchmark of less say N1.2million a year which is an average of N100,000 a month. The analysis have been done, the data is there. So the large percentage of taxpayers we have in Nigeria, the largest percentage, about 95 percent, they are in the lowest rung of the ladder.
When you look at this new structure, these are the people that have been completely exempted from payment of tax, especially now from zero to N800,000, you pay nothing.
Meanwhile, under the old law, from zero to N300,000, you pay at 7 percent. That category of people now, they would pay nothing. Then N300,000 to N600,000, you pay at 11 percent. That category also now, they would pay zero percent. Those who collected their salaries in January, they have seen that reflected in their pay packets. So if you are earning between zero to N100,000, you would pay nothing now.
I pay payee for my staff. For January now, my staff that are on minimum wage, I am paying nothing on them, yes. My support staff that are on minimum wage. If you are earning between zero to N100,000, you pay nothing now because there are still some deductions like you have deductions on Health Insurance, on Life Insurance, on Pensions, you still remove that, even from the staff you pay N100,000 to in a mouth. So when you look at that, it's confusing how people that are supposed to be happy about the new Tax Regime are the ones who are even complaining about it, yeah.
So, but when you talk about taxation on people that earn more, so I don't think that people who have been exempted should be the ones to be fighting the battle for those who earn more and who are supposed to pay taxes under the new Tax Regime.
I spoke to some lawyer colleagues, about two or three of my colleagues confessed to me that they have never paid tax before, yes. I have been paying tax since 1996, till day, yes, and I have my records. The only time I did not pay tax was when I was in school, when I was doing my PhD. So the purpose of this Tax Regime basically is to move from a regressive tax regime to a progressive tax regime and two, to widen the tax net that people who have not been paying can be accommodated. You see people that are complaining are people who have not been paying before. I that I have been paying, I am not complaining because I know how much I have been paying, yes, and I know how I do my returns this year January.
So it is people that have not been paying, who don't even know how much is expected of them that are complaining. If you have been in the tax system, you will not be afraid of this new law because it favours you more than the old law.
Question: Let's look at the situation having to do with insecurity in the country, there is a lot of insecurity, and government has always been maintaining that it has been fighting it, but we still read on daily basis attacks by bandits and terrorists, even in Oyo it is happening, and nearby Ogun, the same thing is happening, so what is the solution, are you not concerned that this menace has been on for years?
Answer: The solution is, number one there is a way insecurity has been politicized in a way that you discovered that some people in this country don't want this country to be at peace. They prioritize their political ambition over and above the peace and stability of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
So you see a governor who is saying that oh! Nigeria is home to all Fulanis all over the world and that all Fulanis are welcome, a governor, a sitting governor in this country? And you now see people answering that call from Mali, from Niger, from Chad, from Cameroon, the so- called Jihadists. Politics has entered into the conversation and I believe that there are elements who believe that if there is peace and stability, the credit would go to the government of the day. So they have to do everything possible to ensure that there is instability. People are being imported into the country deliberately by some unscrupulous political players.
Question: If the government is aware of all these things, what is it doing?
Answer: Security is the responsibility of everybody, the government would be overwhelmed, yes, if every time, you know, the government is finding a solution, you find some people sitting down somewhere who are trying to compound the problem by sponsoring insecurity. You know, there are a number of political commentators, influencers that are being recruited by some political leaders to incite violence against the government of the day. And there are some religious leaders too, who are being recruited by certain political figures to incite hate.
If you see the level of hate campaigns going on on social media, you will marvel. And this has effect, serious consequences on the overall security situation in the country. You see, we have a limited number of Armed Forces in the country, the number of our Armed Forces is very limited.
The same with the Police, the same with the Army that will go to the Sambisa Forest, that will go to Niger State or Kogi State or Kwara State. Our security architecture is stressed too thin, that we don't have enough, even if we double the figure of security personnel we have today, it will not be enough. So I believe that instead of us trying to double or triple the number of our security agencies or personnel, the better approach would be for us to double or triple the number of patriotic Nigerians who will work consciously, the same way they are working to sabotage the peace and security of Nigeria. We could preach to them, we could appeal to them, for them to come on board, to work for the peace and stability and progress of this country. I think to recruit them, recruit more citizens to join the fight against insecurity would be a better approach than doubling the number of our Armed Forces personnel, a cheaper approach would be to double the number of citizens.
Question: Don't you think it is high time for the government to start naming names of those who are trying to sabotage its efforts on security? Because all the time we hear that some people are the sponsors, but up till now the government has not done anything to expose the sponsors and make them face the law, is the government afraid to do this? That would have been a better way to address the matter, don't you think so?
Answer: It would be a better way. But Nigeria is a very complex country.
Question: How?
Answer: We have divisions. Yes. We have religious divisions. We have ethnic divisions.
So if a Yoruba man comes out and he is accusing Mr. X or Chief Y of sponsorship of insecurity, so first thing people might say, oh, oh, he's not APC, he's a PDP man. Oh, that's why government is going after him. Oh, he is a Fulani, and the president is Yoruba.
Question: But sometimes when government is determined, it doesn't care, it goes ahead with whatever it wants to do.
Answer: But you cannot ignore this, this is the reality. This is our reality in this country, yes. When there was a situation in Niger Republic, and Nigeria wanted to intervene, you remember, and Nigeria was saying, oh, Niger Republic is our neighbor. If there is instability in Niger Republic, we are going to be directly affected. But you know what some people said? Some people say, oh, Niger Republic, they are our brothers. Niger Republic is 80 percent Hausa, if you go there, it means that you are against the North.
So Nigeria is a complex country to govern. So, and then there are some religious leaders, whom we now know are sympathizers of some of these elements coming from outside the country.
Yes, they are sympathizers, because they will never condemn, they will never say anything. They will not say anything, they will keep quiet. So, where does their allegiance lie? Nigeria is a very complex country to govern. Also, there are some religious leaders, whom we now know are sympathizers of some of these elements coming from outside the country, because they will never condemn, Deborah was killed in Sokoto, they have nothing to say.
People who are killed in another area, they will not say anything, they will keep quiet. So, where does their allegiance lie? Nigeria is a very complex country. So you hear that, oh, there was a massacre in Plateau, and you find a particular religious leader who will not say anything to condemn it. Check our budget, we are now spending something close to 45 percent of our national budget on security.
Where is the money going? It's going to the North, it's going to the North and what is the contribution of the North to the issue of insecurity in this country? The North is collecting its fair share from FAAC. Nigeria's budget on security before, it used to be 15 percent during the Obasanjo regime, it crept to 25 percent, crept to 30 percent, to 40 percent and now we are doing over 40 percent of our budget on security.
So, and you see the leadership of the North, instead of engaging in intervention, you are hearing some narratives these days now, that oh, there should be amnesty, like what we had in the Niger Delta. What is the parity in that? Is there any semblance of similarity in the criminality going on in Northern Nigeria and what we had in the Niger Delta? The case of the Niger Delta was a case of economic deprivation. You know, they are mainly fishermen and you have already destroyed their rivers with oil pollution and all that, and you have resources being taken from a particular community and people in that community are living in abject poverty.
What all the people of Niger Delta were asking for was just a fair share of whatever activity was going on. The resource control was championed by the West, by Chief Obafemi Awolowo. Chief Awolowo championed resource control, he started resource control, and then we achieved 13 percent derivation.
Was it 13 percent that was proposed by Chief Awolowo? The idea that Chief Awolowo brought to the table, and which was accepted into the 1960 Constitution, was that a region would control its own resources and then pay tax to the centre. So because the North had the opportunity of leading this country through coups during the military era, so they were able to ensure that, okay, everything was centralised. Although that mistake was made by Aguiyi-Ironsi, but I don't think that Aguiyi-Ironsi himself knew what the ramifications could be at the time he made Decree 37 of 1967, the Unification Decree. That was what brought all resources under the Federal control.
Yes, so if people in the Niger Delta felt, oh, you are degrading our environment, you are destroying our forests, you are destroying our rivers, we cannot farm, we cannot fish, so what do we gain from this resource? So the idea of amnesty, what they fought for, every Nigerian, every sincere Nigerian understood what the Niger Delta people were fighting for. So the idea of amnesty was reasonable and it made a lot of sense. But when you talk about insecurity in the North, the Boko Haram, the bandits and all of that, it's not like we have not even done it before.
There had been some period when Nigeria was entertaining the idea of the so-called repentant Boko Haram, and it was discovered at the end that some of those people who called themselves repentant Boko Haram, you know, went back.
Yes, after they were pardoned and they were allegedly rehabilitated, they went back to same business, and same people are engaged now in banditry, in kidnapping, and all kinds of crimes. These are criminals, and the fact that some people can even talk about amnesty for them, then it means that there are people, who don't have interest in the peace of this country. So it's a political thing.
You can't kill everybody. You cannot kill everybody, that's not a kind of problem you want to solve with fighter jets. Yes, this is because the terrorists, they live in the communities. The community people, they know them. Yes, they live together, they eat together, they dine together.
Question: What do you now say on the U.S. coming for intervention based on what it termed genocide against Christians in Nigeria, is it a genuine claim?
Answer: Of course, American intervention is not genuine. How can it be genuine?
Question: Why?
Answer: It cannot be genuine because everybody knows that there is no Christian genocide in Nigeria. I have lived in the North. Yes, I have lived in the North long enough to know that there are Christians in the North, although they are minorities.
And when people talk about Hausa/ Fulani, people forget that there are also minorities even in the core-North. Yes, minority tribes, there are several minority tribes, and there are also Christians even in the core-North.
So, how can anybody talk about Christian genocide? There is no Christian genocide. What you have in Nigeria is pure terrorism, pure and simple. It has no religious coloration whatsoever. So, if America wants to intervene, of course, I believe that America has superior equipment and facilities when it comes to that. They have more number of satellites in orbit that they can see more than our own people can see. So, if they have such information, I believe, with reference to the tenets of International law, I believe that a better approach would be for America to share that intelligence with the Nigerian Armed Forces for them to act on it.
So, that sort of cooperation is acceptable in international law rather than for the U.S. to bomb a sovereign country. Yes, it's against the tenets, it violates the rules of engagement and International law.
Question: Nigerians ahead of 2027 are already seen signals that maybe the country is turning to a one-party state, given the fact that the governors and the chieftains of opposition parties are now moving to the ruling APC. So, already we have almost like 30 governors who have moved into the APC, so, what is happening really? What is your own view?
Answer: I think I have told you before, because initially people were saying that, oh, that they, the opposition, are being threatened to join the APC.
I told you at that time that, you know, in my line of work as an election observer, that we had looked at the reasons for defection, and that there were so many, if you remember. There are so many reasons why somebody might defect. But what you have seen now, in the last few months, has justified everything I said at that time.
You see the way a politician will look at a political party membership will be different from the way a voter, or an average citizen, will look at it. A politician who is an office holder, who is eligible for re-election, would consider his own interests, and, you know, by extension, the interests of his people. When I say his people, maybe the people of his constituency, or the people of his caucus, his supporters, generally, in taking a decision.
Let me give you two quick examples. Look at what happened in Ekiti. The PDP, of course, by now, we now see that there are two PDPs now in court. As we speak, nobody can say, this is the genuine one, this is not. I think there was a judgement about the Ibadan convention. So now, they were trying to have an election in Ekiti, and PDP was trying to field a candidate, and eventually, the list came out, and the PDP candidate was not there, and INEC was justified, because you were having two factions.
You have this faction, and that faction. Even before then, you had a situation where the chairman was here, and the secretary was there. And then they wrote a letter to the INEC, and INEC said, oh, where is the secretary? Oh, secretary came, where is the chairman? So, at the end of the day, if you want to contest election, are you going to wait till that happens? The man in Ekiti that waited, now, has learned a big lesson.
It will never happen to him in the future. In the future, he would have left that party long ago, and joined another party. Joining another party, it doesn't have to be the ruling party. If he is able to get a good deal in the ruling party, he might join them, maybe they promised him something.
You compare that with Osun situation, and now, you see Governor Ademola Adeleke. I believe that, if Adeleke had moved earlier, he would have been able to successfully enter the APC. But, at the time that Adeleke wanted to move, it was almost too late. It was glaring that he was looking for a life support at that time. So, he was seen as very, very desperate. And that was why they could call his bluff. If Adeleke had moved a year ago, it would have been huge.
The APC would not have rejected him, the APC would have welcomed him with open hands. But, it took him too long. So, people are going to move if they feel that their interest will not be served by the party they are in.
Who threatened Atiku to leave the PDP? Nobody. So, people are going to move to where they believe their interest will be better served.
Question: But, you have not addressed people's fears that Nigeria is going towards one party, what do you say to that?
Answer: It's not that Nigeria is going towards one party. Do you know the way I am looking at it, it's actually a good thing.
Question: Do you think that the coalition, ADC, will stand a better chance, come 2027?
Answer: No. I told you the coalition is dead on arrival. Because, as we speak today, you want to run an election against a Bola Tinubu that we know, and by this time you don't have a candidate, the election is gone.
The election of February 2027 is to choose the number two to Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Question: I can't understand, please, explain better.
Answer: You can't understand, laughs. The election of February 2027 is to elect who will be number two to Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Yes, whether it will be Obi, who will be number two, or it will be Atiku Abubakar, who will be number two to Bola Ahmed Tinubu. But as far as the election of 2027 is concerned, it's over it's over, it's over.
Question: But people are saying that, look, the APC that has been welcoming governors, welcoming this, welcoming that, and the decampees meeting people who had long been on ground in APC, is going to create a kind of implosion by the time it comes to primaries towards elections, as you can see that those they met on ground are also interested in contesting elections. Meanwhile, you can see that the governors that are moving into APC are taking over the party, they are being handed over the structures of the party, so what do you see to that?
Answer: The thing about that, people who are saying that don't know the politics. Bola Tinubu is a power player. Yes, he's probably the only power player politician you have in Nigeria. All others are regular politicians.
And that's why you see, when you hear that in every state, the governor is the leader, so that settles it. Bola Tinubu is not an armchair democrat. Yes, he has that gift of leading from the front.
So, there cannot be any implosion in a party led by a Bola Tinubu. Don't forget, this is the first time in the history of this Fourth Republic, where you have a full-fledged democrat as president.
Obasanjo was a military man. So you can never compare anything that happened under Obasanjo with this President Tinubu. Yar'Adua and Jonathan, they were god-sons of a military leader, Obasanjo.
Obasanjo was their godfather, a military man. General Buhari of blessed memory was a military man. So this is the first time that you have a non-military man, a full-fledged civilian as president.
So, that is where the difference lies. So, somebody who was able to grow the party from a single state to 30 states, then he must be doing something right. So, the possibility of an implosion is zero.
Anybody talking of an implosion doesn't know the stuff Bola Tinubu is made of. He has the ability, he has the capacity, he has everything it takes. And also don't forget that coming from this part of the country where we have the idea of collegiate leadership, we are of the school of collegiate leadership.
Yoruba leadership is collegiate. So that is why you can't have implosion in a Yoruba set-up. You can't have an implosion because there will always be what we call elders in the room who can always bring things together.
Even where you have hotheads who want to disturb the peace of the room, there will always be elders. So, I don't see any implosion. I've looked at the line-up of the states, there can't be any implosion.
Question: President Bola Tinubu, come May 29, 2026 will be three years in office, what do you think he should do better ahead of his three years in office?
Answer: Ah! What I think he should do better will be, at this point in time, you see, our GDP is projected to grow at the pace of 4.4 or 4.8 percent this year. The IMF projected it at 4.4 percent, the Federal Government projected it at 4.8 percent. I see it as and go and write it down, I am thinking we are going to do about 5 percent as our GDP.
So, what I believe, what I think the government should focus on will be to ensure that the the reforms that are in place should be galvanized, should be strengthened. We should not lose focus. This is because, if you see the way things are going now, inflation rate is coming down and the exchange rate is getting better. Inflation rate came all the way from 34 percent now to 14 percent. It's projected to go as low as 12 percent this year If we remain focused particularly on those two areas of the exchange rate and fuel subsidy, which are the two major reforms which can come under a single heading of free market reforms. If we galvanize and we don't lose focus, galvanizing means that we don't say, oh, things are working and then we keep our eyes off the ball. I believe that we need to speed up the momentum further in order to ensure that because the way things are going, we have come out of the storm. We are definitely out of the storm. What we now need to do is to bring these macroeconomic figures to reach the average Nigerian, that is okay.
We are talking of inflation rate going down. We are talking of exchange rate getting better. So, we are also talking of the Nigerian GDP growing higher. So, how do we bring all of that to now affect positively the life of the average common man. I think that is what I would want the government to focus on and the way to achieve that is very simple.
For example, I will always continue to say this. Food is a very strong component of any economy. Yoruba used to say that "Ti ounje ba ti kuro ninu ise, ise buse." Even abroad, in the western world, despite the fact that they do their free market economy and all of that, food is heavily subsidized, yes. I would urge that enough energy be put into the availability of food. It's very important. Very, very important. It is not like the economy will be judged by the price of a bag of rice, it is very important for there to be abundance of food in the system.
But there are some other aspects. For example, when you look at the new Tax Regime, I believe by the time we are in August, September, October, we will start seeing figures. Yes, nice figures coming in from the new Tax Regime, especially from the new people that the tax net will have brought in. There is bound to be higher revenue. When we have this higher revenue, how to deploy that to more infrastructure, especially power, roads and rails should be considered.
We need to invest heavily in infrastructure because eventually we have seen in the case of Lagos how every investment in infrastructure can actually have a very positive multiplier effect on the rest of the economy. That has been well tested in the Lagos economy. So we need to invest heavily in especially power, roads and rails, which will catalyze the economic activities across the country. I think moving forward, that's what the government can do.
You look at it today, Nigeria doesn't have any revenue problem anymore. Our budget has just been passed by the House of Reps at N54.4 trillion, that's huge figure. You see a lot of 36 states of Nigeria, their budgets are now climbing over a trillion Naira each. What does that say? It means that revenue-wise, we are doing great. But the thing now is how to deploy that revenue into economic activities that will affect the life of the ordinary man on the street. I think that's what we need to focus on.
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