A legal practitioner, Barrister Baridi Robert, has advised the federal government to observe constitutional rules and do what’s right and avoid illegality.
Speaking on the backdrop of Value Added Tax (VAT) and who should collect the tax the legal practitioner said that the constitution was clear for states to collect value added tax.
He described the move by South-South states to join in suit by Rivers State government over the issue as welcome development saying that the issue of VAT was not in exclusive list.
He said: “It’s long overdue. This is something they should have done long ago. The federal government has taken the states for granted. In fact, they have taken everybody for granted. The law is there. The constitution has not been amended. The issue of Value Added Tax is not in their own list, is not in the exclusive legislative list for the federal government. So it’s something that the states are the ones constitutionally empowered to do”.
He further said: “But because this is a country where the people who are in leadership have military mentality and don’t have respect for the rule of law, they have decided to do things the way they are doing. They (government officials) know the law but they will advise the government to do illegality”.
He said it was welcome development that South-South governors were supporting Rivers and Lagos States in the suit on Value Added Tax.
He expressed optimism that they would succeed over the suit so long as the constitution remained the same.
Asked why Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) had been collecting VAT until the time it was challenged in court, the legal practitioner said it could be attributed to ignorance on part of state governments saying that they could have otherwise stopped it if they had gone to court earlier.
He said those who give legal advice to the state governments should have advised the governments earlier on what to do and reiterated that it was constitutional for the states to collect value added tax.
He said the move by the states would unify states in the region as well as other issues confronting the region.
He said that the country was polarized and blamed the federal government for adding to polarization of the country.
He said that agitations in the country showed that the country was polarized dating back to time of setting up of Willink’s Commission to look into fears of minorities.
The Rivers State government took the federal government to court on the issue of collection of VAT and won victory at Federal High Court in Port-Harcourt and enacted a law to facilitate collection of VAT by the state.
A value added tax is a consumption tax levied on a product repeatedly at every point of sale at which value has been added.
