SOMETIME in the late 90s, the end-of-year camp meeting of a certain Sango Ota Church in Ogun State was rocked by a scandal that bore some similarities to the misfortune that befell the Celestial Church of Christ, Testimony Parish, Egbeda, Oyo State, penultimate week. The story, if you saw the front page of the Saturday Tribune last week, was simply this: less than a week to the ninth “Adult Harvest Thanksgiving Service” of the church, thieves had invaded the church grounds and made away with two large cows meant for the celebration. Well, in the Sango Ota story, the invader was someone within. It so happened that the congregation had contributed a hefty sum for the December camp meeting of the church and its affiliates. However, the man who held the contributions chose to play Judas Iscariot with some hundreds of thousands out of the money. But he never got to enjoy his crime: he bought a sachet of pure water out of the sum, and somehow, a piece of the nylon got stuck in his teeth. Eventually, he landed in a hospital where, sadly, he joined his ancestors. I’ve told this story because it is a metaphor for Nigeria’s national dynamics where certain bandits up North have made it their business to rob the rest of the country blind.
You cannot imagine the theft at Testimony Parish without squirming. The Celestial Church, or Cele as the Yoruba call it, is a proudly African outfit, and we all know that palm wine is at the heart of African spirituality. That is why members of the Kegites Club in Ondo once sang this tune: “To ba ma je Cele o, je Cele elemu/To ba ma je Cele o, ko si ma menu/Emu die Cele die lo n mu Cele dun/To ba je Cele o, je Cele elemu.” (If you want to be a Celestial member, be one that drinks palm wine…/It is a little palm wine, a little Celestial that makes Celestial such a sweet religion). Ahead of the Thanksgiving service, members of the church were no doubt in high spirits. Drinks and food had been provided in abundance, and talking drummers were certain to burst their drums commanding worshippers’ waists. Alas, some basejes (feast-spoilers) came and crushed the fun, just like certain criminals north of this Lugardian affliction have done for ages.
Since President Bola Tinubu introduced certain tax bills canvassing a derivation-based approach to revenue sharing, the tyrants who cornered the national wealth for themselves during decades of military rule have not ceased foaming at the mouth. Tinubu’s bills offer 55 percent to states in a new VAT-sharing formula, provide zero VAT on exports and essential commodities, and reduce company income tax from 30 percent to 25 percent, but these tyrants don’t care. Rabiu Kwankwaso, the red-cap clown who poses as the saviour of the North, spewed this garbage while delivering a speech during the convocation ceremony at Skyline University, Kano: “Today, we can see very clearly that there is a lot of efforts from the Lagos axis to colonize this part of the country… Lagos young men are working so hard to impose taxes and take away our taxes from Kano and this part of the country to Lagos. Today, as we have seen, even the telephones that we make or register here in Kano, efforts are there to take all the taxes to Lagos.”
Tinubu’s tax proposals are saying the exact opposite, but Kwankwaso has to entertain his crowd. The loudmouth who wants to be president of Nigeria didn’t complain of colonialism when the resources of Lagos went into creating and sustaining Jigawa State, which was taken out of the old Kano. Kano and Lagos used to have 20 LGs each but between them, Kano and Jigawa now have 71 LGs mining allocations from Abuja. The grand old Lagos is stuck with 20 LGs even with the massive population explosion!
Reacting to the bill meant to enact “the Nigeria Tax Act to Provide for Taxation of Income, Transactions and Instruments, and for Related Matters,” northern governors and traditional rulers unanimously rejected it, claiming that it did not serve the interests of the North. The Northern Governors’ Forum led by Muhammed Yahaya of Gombe State boldly declared that the derivation-based model for VAT distribution could disproportionately disadvantage their region. It is clear that the northern interest in other people’s money, a culture of parasitism nurtured since the military days, will never wane. Northern goons, who by the way have no more love for the ordinary northern citizen than a leech, rob Nigeria like rabid bandits, taking and taking again from the southern beast of burden.
During military rule, these charlatans found nothing wrong with the blatant robbery of the South through states and LG creation. They happily played ping pong with Niger Delta money. And when democracy came, like the recent thieves of Cele cows, they stole the southern harvest. For 13 years, the country waited for the PIB, but when it came in July 2021, it was a holocaust. While the Ahmad Lawan-led Senate gave only three percent equity shareholding to the host communities, it earmarked 30 percent for oil exploration in the North! With this decision, 30 percent of profits accruing from oil and gas operations by the NNPC were set aside for oil exploration in “the frontier basins.” Apparently, this was in the interest of “the North” and the rogues up North saw nothing wrong with the monumental heist!
Had a city like Ibadan been in the North, it would have become a state long before 99. The democracy we enjoy today did not come because these leeches wanted it; it came through divine execution of the bloodthirsty criminal in power who wrote a secret memo to his Head of Service asking him to “terminate the Yorubas,” meaning to ease them out of the civil service. I wanted to lambast Tinubu’s appointments but then remembered that the last time a Yoruba person was called COAS was in 1979. Somehow, the Nigerian Ports Authority has been a colony of the ‘North.’ Actions attract reactions, and these clowns pretending to speak for the North don’t excite me. They are the same hypocrites who made the northern masses the wretched of the earth. Per the Nigerian Tribune: “Ethnic nationalities in the Middle-belt and North have thrown their support behind the tax reform bills which are presently before the National Assembly. They also urged the presidency and the NASS to cooperate and synergise to ensure that the tax reform bill pass through the normal process.” End of story.
I don’t subscribe to Section 146 of the bill which proposes a gradual VAT increase from 7.5 percent to 10 percent in 2025, and 15 percent by 2030. But I am in full agreement with the derivation-based approach to resource allocation, which is certainly in tune with the fundamental principles of federalism. Shikena.
Re: The G.O is a smart guy
Your write-up titled “The G.O. is a smart guy” is a thought-provoking one and an eye-opener as well for the wise ones. In fact, establishing a church nowadays is a one-man business venture where all the assets, including money, belong to only one person, the founder, and by extension his wife or wives and children, except where the church’s operation is guided by a legally approved constitution. So, no sane member of such a church will expect the G.O. to hand over to him or her. May God continue to increase you in knowledge and wisdom. Amen.
Alhaji Mukaila Ayinla Bello: 08069029540
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