Tinubu, we are overtaxed! FEMI ADEOTI COLUMN

 

FEMI ADEOTI COLUMN

Restlessness and restiveness fit them to the hilt. The perfect words to tag them. They are always on the move. Only for the wrong reason. Sad.

Very quick to point out how they do things in other lands. They would tell us the economic downtown is global. As if we are out of tune with our immediate environment.

They paint gory picture out of their eerie imagination. And subtly threaten: We dare not be an island unto ourselves. That would be calamitous. We must flow with the tide.

But they won’t do what other countries do. They insist our naira is in danger. Its life is tied to the whims and caprices of the dollar. Whatever happens to the dollar becomes our naira’s lot.

When dollar sneezes, naira shivers. It is that bad, pitiable. To rescue the naira. We race to churches, mosques to bind the devil.

Even the black gold, petroleum, that we have in surplus abundance. They have turned it against us. We wished we didn’t have that black gold. We can’t determine its right price. They cajole us that it’s “an international product.” And the price is determined in faraway Washington, DC, USA.

The oil we drill by ourselves is out of our reach. By our greed, recklessness and negligence. We blindly turn our fortunes over to aliens. And they manage things the manner they deem fit.

They are glad to determine our fate. Using the instrument of our God-given oil. Do you blame them? What an idiotic irony! For the idiots and fools we are.

This weird clime of ours is adorned with oddities and absurdities. The way we run our affairs is amazing and amusing.

It’s like one miserable fish. It jumps out of water without a mission. Whatever comes its way is strange. It cannot live its normal life to the fullest. Not until it returns to water.

Peace eludes it effortlessly. Chaos and crisis take its better part. The new way of life. And its insanity hikes at the speed of light.

At this juncture, its situation is more than critical. It’s knocking fast at a point of no return. It seems to defy all solutions known and unknown.

The fish is confused about its new environment. It responds to it with a deluded mind. It keeps on frustrating itself. The environment is taking its toll on the fish. It is not reacting positively to its actions and inactions. The environment and its new inhabitant, the fish, are at loggerheads.

They are not cut out for each other. They’re strangers. They never flock together. For they are not birds of the same feather. The earliest they realise it, the best for them.

The environment is not anywhere near friendly.  Fish is not known to inhabit land. It’s strictly meant for water. And the environment puts a curse on the day that fish landed on land.

The fish is in excruciating pain. It is in utmost agony. It wonders why its efforts are not yielding the intended fruits.

The two strange bedfellows fail to understand the undercurrent of their plight. Their activities are at variance with their needs.

One simple solution they need. Let both return to their vomits. Each should go back to where it truly belongs. If they bury their ugly pride and do the needful. Their obstacles will dissolve instantly. Their plight will disappear into thin air even without them knowing.

The environment is we, the led. Our leaders have turned to tin gods. They have become rulers before our very eyes. They are the dreary fish out of water.

Many of their policies are at great variance with our yearnings. No synergy. They bear no bearings on us. They only fester our predicaments the more.

In simple terms, let’s tell President Bola Tinubu, we are overtaxed. We can’t endure this burden no more. The yoke increases by the minute. No end in sight.

We shouldn’t be taxed out of existence. What has this government not taxed in its less than a year in power? Practically nothing. We can’t honestly find one.

Tell us one item Tinubu has not taxed. And we will roll out a legion he has brazenly taxed. With brutal audacity and vicious impunity.

This is not the same story in saner climes. Those countries they would readily cite to justify their deeds. The suspended cyber security levy made a complete mess of that assertion.

This time around, they couldn’t sustain the levy. They could not lure us into it. The levy had to be collapsed like a pack of loose cards. It wasn’t palatable nor was it pleasant. The reason they succumbed to superior argument. And surrendered the way they did.

I have bizarre feeling. That policy summersault may take a prominent position as an achievement in their one year in power. There is nothing “Audu will not see for gate.” We are waiting for the unrepentant hailers. They have made a career out of bootlicking.

See what this policy was not allowed to do for us. See what we missed. See what we carelessly threw to the marines. Had we allowed this obnoxious levy to run its full course. We would have raked in a whopping and mouth-watering N2 trillion. Just in one year. This would have gone strictly to the Office of the National Adviser on Security (ONAS). All alone!

With this “meagre” sum, all bandits, terrorists, kidnappers. And their cousins in every nook and cranny of Nigeria would have been “neutralised.” Whatever sense that makes to them.

They would have been defeated. In all ramifications, intents and purposes. They would not only be “technically defeated.” But also “mechanically, physically, departmentally and permanently defeated.”

Thank heavens there was that policy reversal. And it came at the nick of time. We are forever glad that levy was stopped in the manner it was stopped.

There was no reasonable need for it in the first instance. There is no known sane clime that runs its economy heavily on cyber security levy. None.

So, running its full course would have been the fullest curse for us. It would have widened the already thriving terrorism/banditry sub-sector of our fragile economy.

The sub-sector would have festered unguided and unguarded. Even beastly beyond our wildest and weirdest imagination.

It would have become chaotic and unending. We would have lost the little window we had in checkmating that dreaded sub-sector.

That’s clearly when policy stoppage turns into a blessing. Even an achievement, as it were. Or as the case may be. That policy was one sure way of how to run Nigeria aground.

We were meticulous. It was a deliberate intention. We looked around. We surveyed the economies of the world’s major players.

One after the other, we scanned through. What we found was heartening, stirring and uplifting. None of them, not one, runs its economy on cyber security levy. It’s alien to them.

They didn’t go there. They never cared to touch it. They pretended it never existed. It didn’t cross their minds. And these are the movers and shakers of the world. With buoyant economies.

These are the countries we scrutinised. Have a sumptuous bite. You will cherish it: The European Union, United States and United Kingdom. Their economies didn’t feature cyber security levy. No VAT charges! No stamp duty charges on transfer.

Most of their banks offer SMS alerts free. We even came to Africa. Interestingly, the same situations prevail in South Africa, Kenya and Rwanda.

These economies are into very serious engagements. They are not cosmetic like ours. No white elephants. The vision drives the mission. Their young see vision. And their elders dream dreams.

The principal focus is on production. That’s what keeps them going. The reason they are balanced and stable. They can’t easily stumble and fumble as we do numberless times. Very organised and disciplined. Their systems work with strong institutions.

Over there, no individual is larger than life. Such would be cut to size within the armpit of the law. You can’t mess up with the courts as we often do here. You will instantly end up in jail.

You dare not cut corners with tax. You’re gone in a jiffy. Over there, the rich and wealthy are the main targets of the tax laws. They pay heavily for the luxuries they enjoy. They are under constant surveillance.

They are put under check. They are made to pay for any default. In fact, they dare not risk it. The taxes they pay are used to run welfare for the poor. And make them live a decent life.

The exact opposite is the case with us. In total dishonesty, we walk the truth on its head. The poor are squeezed. They groan under heavy taxation. They are forced to pay various types of taxes.

Tragically, these are used to sustain these eerie characters: The rich, the wealthy, the powerful, the greedy, the selfish, the wicked, the dreaded, the cruel, the crude, et al.

You now see why we’re permanently stuck and stagnant. And we’re not ready to break the jinx any time soon. Great pity!

So, it looks strange and somehow. When hailers among us come up with their pranks. That we should appreciate what the government is doing. Appreciate? How?

That’s not binding on us! They come begging us to govern. That’s the essence of electioneering. They end up ruling us. How can we be begging them to do what they beg us to allow them do for us?

It’s strange, odd. No sane clime does that. Instead of begging them to do the needful. We should call them out to serious questions. They should be interrogated and made accountable.

We are not under any obligation, not at all. Appreciation is not part of the pact they sign with us. Appreciation is earned. It’s not given. And you can’t beg for it either. We need to be clear in our minds.

Appreciation flows freely from the bottom of the heart. It’s voluntary. You can’t prod it. You can’t stir it. And you dare not incite it. That would be counterproductive. That’s another realm entirely. We are not ready for that.

Our leaders should be answerable to their actions and inactions. That’s the practice where the system works. We need to get this into our skulls. Both the ruled and the rulers, the powerless and the powerful, even the good and the bad.

That terse statement on cyber security levy suspension? It is not liable. It’s not accountable in any form. It hugely fell short of our expectations. Acutely vague and ambiguous. It lacks clarity.

What a big goof, a huge minus! That order is still hanging and dangling. It is flying carelessly in the air. That is dangerous. We are convinced it’s still on the cards. It has not left us. It doesn’t give us any hope. Not even a renewed one.

The President ought to be specific and more forthcoming. He ought to emulate himself. And do what he did to fuel subsidy on his first day in office. He needs to be seriously reminded of this gaffe. We are at a loss.

What exactly are his intentions on cyber security levy? Is it coming back after being reviewed as he ordered? What really is on his mind? We need to know even now.

We’re not faking it. We’re not pretending about it either. Nor tolerating it. Rather, we’re shouting it out:

Let’s shout it one more time: Tinubu, we are overtaxed!

LAST LINES

I picked this anonymous message up from a reputable platform. It’s too powerful and convincing. It’s simply irresistible:

“You can’t build an economy by removing subsidies for the poor and raising taxes and interest rates at the same time. Taxes do not grow the economy, production does.

“The poor must not perish for a nation to develop! Unless you are playing someone’s script!”

Right or right?