When the final law becomes a mystery

Nigeria is facing a tax law crisis that goes beyond revenue, reform, or fiscal policy. What is unfolding is a crisis of credibility. When a law is passed by elected representatives, signed by the President, and then questioned by the same lawmakers who passed it, the issue is no longer about interpretation. It is about whether the Nigerian state can be trusted to follow its own constitutional procedures.

The controversy over the newly gazetted tax laws did not emerge from the streets or from social media speculation. It came from within the legislature itself. Lawmakers raised the alarm that what was gazetted and presented to Nigerians as law did not fully reflect what they debated, passed, and transmitted for presidential assent. At first, these concerns were brushed aside as political mischief. That dismissal was convenient, but it was intellectually dishonest. When elected lawmakers publicly question the authenticity of a law, it is not noise. It is an institutional red flag.

What followed only deepened the problem. Matters of privilege were raised, investigations announced, and calls for re-gazetting issued. Legal professionals warned of the dangers of implementing a law whose legitimacy is in doubt. Yet the executive response was defensive rather than clarifying. Nigerians were told, in effect, to accept that the gazetted version is the law and to stop asking questions. That posture misses the point entirely. The demand for clarity is not rebellion. It is democracy.

This controversy is not about proving malicious alteration beyond reasonable doubt. It is about something more basic and more disturbing. Nigeria has created a law-making system in which the final, binding version of the law emerges from a process that is opaque even to the lawmakers who participated in it. That is indefensible. In any serious democracy, legislators should not have to rely on assurances from the executive to know what law they passed. The fact that they do is an indictment of the system.

The most damning aspect of this episode is the absence of a publicly accessible, certified harmonised version of the bill transmitted to the President. Without that document in the public domain, there is no independent way to verify whether the gazetted law faithfully reflects legislative intent. This is not a minor administrative oversight. It is a structural failure that invites suspicion and fuels mistrust. When verification is impossible, denial is not reassurance.

Defenders of the status quo argue that once a law is gazetted, it becomes law, full stop. That argument may satisfy a narrow legal technicality, but it fails the democratic test. Laws derive their authority not just from publication, but from the integrity of the process that produces them. A process that cannot withstand scrutiny is a weak foundation for any reform, no matter how well intentioned.

The stakes are especially high because this is a tax law. Taxation is one of the most intrusive powers of the state. It reaches into livelihoods, businesses, and personal income. Governments that expect compliance must first demonstrate legitimacy. Asking citizens to comply with a tax law whose origins are contested is not governance. It is coercion dressed up as reform.

There is also a dangerous double standard at play. Ordinary Nigerians are routinely told that ignorance of the law is no excuse. Yet in this case, even lawmakers are struggling to clearly identify the law itself. If those who made the law cannot publicly point to the exact text they passed, what moral authority does the state have to demand unquestioning compliance from citizens?

The call for re-gazetting and issuance of certified true copies should have been embraced immediately as a confidence-building measure. Instead, it has been treated as an inconvenience, even an affront. This defensive instinct is revealing. It suggests a political culture more concerned with saving face than with safeguarding institutional integrity. Re-gazetting is not an admission of guilt. Refusing to clarify in the face of credible doubt is.

This episode also exposes how poorly Nigeria documents its legislative process. Final bills disappear into bureaucratic channels and re-emerge as law without a clear public audit trail. Amendments made during harmonisation are not easily traceable. Citizens are expected to accept the final product without seeing the steps that produced it. In an era of digital transparency, this is not just outdated. It is reckless.

The long-term consequences of this approach are severe. Courts may eventually be forced to adjudicate disputes rooted not in policy disagreements, but in procedural ambiguity. Investors may hesitate, wary of regulatory environments where laws can be questioned after publication. Citizens may deepen their cynicism, convinced that governance is something done to them, not with them.

Perhaps the most troubling implication is what this says about separation of powers. When the legislature cannot confidently assert ownership over the laws it passes, the balance of power is distorted. Oversight becomes performative, and accountability weakens. A legislature that cannot clearly trace its own output is reduced from a co-equal branch to a rubber stamp.

This is why the focus should not be on personalities or partisan loyalties. It should be on the system that allowed this controversy to arise and persist. Nigeria does not need blind trust. It needs verifiable processes. The solution is not to silence questions, but to answer them with documents, timelines, and transparency.

The question Nigerians should be asking is simple and uncomfortable. If the state cannot clearly show how a law moved from debate to assent to gazette, why should anyone trust it with something as sensitive as taxation? Until this question is answered honestly, every claim of reform will ring hollow.

This controversy is a warning. It exposes a governance culture that underestimates the intelligence of citizens and overestimates the durability of institutional secrecy. Nigeria can either confront this failure and reform its legislative processes, or continue down a path where every major law is greeted with suspicion. The choice is not between order and chaos. It is between accountability and erosion.

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