Tax Reform bills: Borno leaders urge Tinubu to emulate Kenya, back Ndume

By Andrew Oota

The Southern Borno Concerned Leaders have urged President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to be guided by the Kenya example on fiscal policies in his bid to pull through his four controversial and largely misunderstood tax reform bills before the National Assembly.
They equally threw their support behind former Senate Whip , Senator Ali Mohammad Ndume who had earlier raised deep concerns about the proposed legislations.
In a statement made available to journalists in Abuja, the leaders urged the President to borrow a leaf from the Kenyan government where planned fiscal reforms plunged the country into unprecedented crisis and unimaginable catastrophe.
In there defense of senator Ndume the group,through
Comrade Bulama Ali Haruna Sawa, the spokesperson for the Senatorial District, urged Nigerians to ignore a “so-called Northern Redemption Coalition, and its faceless Convener, one Adamu Bashir, over the position of our Senator, Mohammed Ali Ndume, on the tax bill submitted to the National Assembly by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.”
According to him, they support the position of Ndume, stressing that “as people who understand the implications of the said bills and its likely after effects on our people, we have decided to speak out, if only to expose the fallacy in the said Adamu Bashir’s rejoinder to senator Ndume’s interview on TV.
He continued , “We fully identify with the positions of the Northern Governors, our revered Northern Elders and the National Economic Council, and of course Senator Mohammed Ali Ndume over the matter.
“The said Bashir Adamu, if he actually exists, is at best a meddlesome interloper, who is not known to anybody in Southern Borno. We challenge him to make a physical appearance as proof of his real identity, and to tell the world at which meeting it was agreed that the people of Southern Borno differ with their senator over the tax reform bill.
“It is not only true that the bills have the tendency to deepen the pedagogy of the Nigerian masses but is heavily skewed against our people and indeed the people of the North.
“We had expected Adamu Bashir to take up arguments based on issues raised by the Senator in the interview rather than rush to the public with a poorly scripted demagogue on behalf of his paymasters. It is rather a paradox that Bashir talks about recalling Senator Ndume at a time we are getting pleased and satisfied with Ndume’s work as our Senator.”
Continuing , he said: “It is also unfortunate that, somebody somewhere has decided to trivialise the very serious issue of a bill that will further cause harm to an already despairing populace, for obvious pecuniary gains.”