Board of Trustees of the Northern Elders’ Forum (NEF) yesterday after its second bi-annual meeting Abuja chaired by Professor Emeritus Ango Abdullahi, endorsed the position of the Northern Governors’ Forum and northern traditional rulers on President Bola Tinubu’s tax reform bills at the National Assembly.
The forum in a communique signed by Prof. Abdullahi and made available to journalists in Abuja stated that the meeting unanimously endorsed the patriotic stand taken on the raging national debate about the bills by the Northern Governors’ Forum in conjunction with the Northern Nigeria Council of Traditional Rulers, just as it reaffirmed NEF’s strong opposition to this pernicious policy.
In addition, the meeting seriously maintained that in its present form, the Tax Reform Bills were conceived in bad faith, poorly packaged and a palpable threat to unity and national cohesion. The meeting drew attention to the way and suspicious manner in which the bills were imposed on the nation, without allowing in-puts of critical stakeholders, even as it kept members of the National Economic Council in the dark, thus confirming the sinister intentions of those promoting the bills.
The communique said, “The board-in-session condemned in very strong terms, the conspicuous loss of voice on this burning issue by the overwhelming number of elected politicians in the National Assembly from the region and fiercely warned that indeed, the days are fast gone when such conspiratorial connivance against the vital and strategic interest of the region, either by those within or outside the region, would be condoned or even tolerated.
“In consideration of the deteriorating situation in the education sector in the country in general and the North in particular, the Board-in-Session was alarmed by the high percentage, now about (60%) of students in northern Nigeria who involuntarily were not able to return to their institutions of higher learning, universities, polytechnics, colleges of education and legal studies due to high costs of tuition fees and unaffordable daily transportation to and from schools.
“The meeting discussed the explosive crisis of out of school children now estimated to be 20 million in the whole country, of which over 80% comes from the North. Against this troubling reality, the Board-in-session expressed serious doubt, on the viability and efficacy of the much-touted Federal Students Loan Scheme as a panacea to this malignant malady.
“The Board-in-session, unanimously frowned at the surreptitious move being masterminded by the Ministry of Mines and Solid Minerals to sponsor dubious mining policies in collusion with certain political actors, with the sole aim of stifling the investment opportunities of the huge mineral resource potentials linked to the vast Northern region.
“The meeting decried the prevalence of condescending attitude being exhibited by some powerful political actors in the region, who more often than not, behave arrogantly and disdainfully like rulers rather than leaders fully committed to the plight of their people.
The Board-in-session, urgently called on the people of the North to stay resolute and remain vigilant in defence of their inalienable rights, particularly their voting rights and to desist from allowing themselves to be deceived yet again, through subterfuge, use of ill-gotten wealth and religious manipulation, by some unscrupulous elements, whose past records did not portray them to be persons of integrity, character and probity.
“The Board-in-session, reaffirmed its strong appeal to the entire people of the North, to continue to jealousy guard their cherished unity and resist all attempts and unpatriotic plans by incorrigible adversaries to divide their rank and to unswervingly, rededicate themselves to the cause of the North and the nation in general.”
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