Former Vice President of the World Bank, Ezekwesili, demanded a halt to the implementation of the controversial tax laws
Former Vice President of the World Bank, Dr Obiageli ‘Oby’ Ezekwesili, has called on President Bola Tinubu to immediately halt the implementation of Nigeria’s Tax Reform Act amid allegations that a tainted version of the law was gazetted, warning that the controversy poses a grave threat to constitutional governance.
In a public notice addressed to the presidency and the National Assembly via her X handle, Ezekwesili condemned the alleged gazetting of the wrong version of the tax law, stating that the development has exposed serious deficits in both policy coherence and the credibility of the lawmaking process.
Describing the situation as an assault on constitutional democracy, the former education and solid minerals minister said she supports tax reforms that are capable of strengthening economic growth and fiscal sustainability, but not at the expense of due process and legitimacy.
“As a practitioner in economic policy, I am naturally disposed to support tax reforms that strengthen growth, equity, fiscal sustainability and state capacity — without compromising core principles of taxation or the credibility and legitimacy of the lawmaking process,” she wrote.
“All actions so far taken by the executive and legislative branches regarding the gazetting of a wrong version of the recently passed and assented Tax Reform Act constitute a grave threat to constitutional governance and must be halted.”
Ezekwesili argued that what should have been a confidence-building, growth-enhancing reform has instead degenerated into confusion, public distrust and resistance, largely due to what she described as process failure, policy incoherence and political tone-deafness.
According to her, the version of the Acts reportedly gazetted contains constitutionally troubling provisions, including clauses that lack clear and traceable legislative origin, expansions of administrative discretion that weaken taxpayer protections, as well as federalism and legality issues that demand urgent clarification.
Consequently, she urged the federal government to stop, rescind and reset the entire process in the overriding public interest.
“I call on the executive and legislature to prioritise the public interest and immediately terminate and rescind all steps taken on the wrongly gazetted version; suspend implementation of any version pending a credible resolution; and restart transparently by returning to the legislature for a renewed process that begins from the public hearing stage, so Nigerians can see, test and trust the text that will govern them,” the co-founder and founding director of Transparency International said.
Specifically directing her appeal to President Tinubu, Ezekwesili called for an immediate postponement of the implementation of whichever version of the tax law is currently being treated as operative, until the integrity of the legislative text is resolved beyond doubt.
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“Gazetting a wrong bill as an Act is prima facie unlawful and potentially unconstitutional. If the wrong version was knowingly substituted or altered, then it may also implicate serious criminal liability,” she warned.
She expressed concern that the National Assembly appeared to have responded by merely instructing a “re-gazetting” of what it described as the correct version, without instituting a transparent and independent inquiry into how the anomaly occurred.
“That approach does not meet democratic standards. It compounds the harm,” she said.
Ezekwesili further criticised what she described as a troubling pattern of governance in which rules are bent and processes improvised without accountability.
“Running Nigeria like a personal grocery shop, where rules are bent, processes improvised and the public asked to accept ‘corrections’ without accountability, must stop,” she said.
According to her, the continued disregard for public outcry and democratic norms by both the executive and legislature is incompatible with democratic governance.
“A functioning democracy requires that when something this significant goes wrong, government triggers a system check: review, investigation, evaluation and full disclosure,” said Ezekwesili, who is also the founder of the School of Politics, Policy and Governance.
