Month: January 2023

By Muhammadu Sabiu 
 
The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has announced that by using its flagship taxpro max solution, taxpayers may now easily receive their Tax Clearance Certificate.
 
The solution, which consists of a tax administration module unveiled by the top tax authority in June 2021, provides a quick way for activities including taxpayer registration, tax return filing, tax payment, and getting a tax clearance certificate.
 
According to a statement released yesterday and signed by Mr. Johannes Wojuola, Special Assistant to the Executive Chairman, FIRS (Media & Communication), the taxpayer can now generate a Tax Clearance Certificate with just one click, as opposed to the two weeks it previously took to do so.
 
This technical advancement follows extensive technological improvements that the Service undertook in an effort to fully automate its tax administration activities.
 
Commenting on the development, Muhammad Namu, the Executive Chairman of the FIRS, said, “One of our objectives as a service is to build a Customer-Centric institution.
 
“That means an institution that has the customer at the heart of its innovations and solutions. It is for this reason that we have tuned the operations of our TaxPro Max solution to be able to deliver Tax Clearance Certificates in the shortest possible time to taxpayers.
 
“At the click of a button, a taxpayer will get their Tax Clearance Certificates, as long as they have no outstanding liabilities.
 
“This would impact in no small measure on the ease of doing business in Nigeria.”

By Ahmad Deedat Zakari

The Legal Practitioners’ Privileges Committee (LPPC), has requested that legal practitioners in Nigeria, who desire the attainment of the rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), should submit applications online.

This was disclosed by the Chief Registrar of the Supreme Court and Secretary of the Legal Practitioners’ Privileges Committee, Hajo Sarki Bello in a memoir on Monday, January 2, 2022.

Bello said this year application is online and lawyers who desire the award of the rank of SAN should submit relevant documents to the LPPC’s portal.

He added that all applicants must pay a non-refundable processing fee of one million naira and upload evidence of the payment online.

Part of the memoir reads: “By the combined provisions of Section 5(2) of the Legal Practitioners’ Act Cap 11 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria of Nigeria 2004 and the Regulation 10 (1) – (4) of the Guidelines for the Conferment of the Rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria 2022. (“The Guidelines”) the Legal Practitioners’Privileges Committee ( “the LPPC or the Committee “) hereby makes a formal call for applications preparatory to the rank of the year 2023. Commencing with the year’s exercise applications shall only be made online and prospective applicants are directed to visit www. lppconline.com to make their application.”

The rank of Senior Advocates of Nigeria is the highest rank in the Nigerian Bar. It is the equivalent of the rank of the Queen’s Counsel in the United Kingdom. The rank of SAN is yearly awarded to legal practitioners that have distinguished themselves in character and advocacy.

By Lawan Bukar Maigana

I keep telling people that it is too early for us in Nigeria as a whole to adopt a cashless policy. It is just obviously too early. Yesterday, I read a post by Prof. Abdelghaffar Amoka of the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, in Kaduna State, about his experience with a Point of Sale, PoS, agent.

He had gone to refill his gas cylinders at the cost of 19k+ and he used a PoS machine to pay for it. Though he was debited, the money wasn’t credited to the PoS agent’s account. Rather than waste his time there, he transferred another money to someone’s account to pay for refilling. He would have become helpless if he was moneyless.

Some weeks back, I experienced a similar thing in Abuja. I went to withdraw 5k using a PoS from a woman at the NYSC parade ground. I was debited but she didn’t receive the money. She then told me that she won’t give me the money until she receives an alert. Luckily, I had a paltry sum left in my account. I then withdrew the money using a different PoS. It took my bank nearly ten days to refund me.

Before then, and about three years ago, I had the same experience with UBA. I used my father’s card to withdraw N100,000. I tried six times, but all of the transactions didn’t dispense cash, and he was debited five times. My dad only knew it after a week. He complained to the bank but they denied it, without carefully checking whether the transactions were successful or not.

They had to call me to come from school. I quickly got to the bank because it involved my father. I had to help them understand that the transactions failed. Only then they rechecked and discovered that I was right. That was indeed an issue bordering on unprofessionalism.

If not because of my father I would have sued the bank, because they threatened me with a police arrest, saying it was a criminal case. My father asked me to accept their apology else I would have sought compensation for making me look like a criminal, while they were at fault.

Before going ahead with its cashless policy, another factual and excusable factor the Apex Bank should consider is the fact that most of our businesses are done in cash, especially those trading in rural communities and towns and other remote areas where there are no banks, no network, no internet, no electricity, no education, and these people form a large portion of the Nigerian populace.

The questions I keep asking myself regarding this policy are: Did the Central Bank of Nigeria build banks in those areas? Would the people be traveling from their various villages to cities to transfer, withdraw or deposit money? What did the government do in place of these challenges? Does CBN have enough manpower to do this job even if they have built banks? Did CBN mistake Abuja, Kano, Lagos, Port Harcourt, and a few cities for Nigeria?

These, among other reasons, are the factors I want the CBN Governor to consider. Before they present this policy, they need to put all these things in place and educate people about it so that people will evaluate its strengths and weaknesses, and decide to either oppose or support it. The CBN didn’t do that. It just woke up from its slumber and served it to the Nigerians a la carte. Time will however tell if Nigerians will embrace it, warts and all.

Lawan Bukar Maigana is a social analyst. He writes from Abuja and can be reached via email: lawanbukarmaigana@gmail.com

By Ibrahim Abubakar

In the late 1890s, my great-grandfather narrowly escaped the evil claws of the Mahdi’s hostile and belligerent lieutenant, Rabeh Bn Fadlallah, who had invaded Borno to spread the Mahdist ideology. They sacked the empire’s capital of Kukawa, captured and executed Sheikh of Borno, and enslaved many people. This martial excess sent trembles across the land, and many thought it wise to migrate westward into the Sokoto Caliphate for safety. Among those who migrated to the Caliphate was my great-grandfather, Mamadou. Of its two dozen emirates, Mamadou chose Kano as his refuge.

Kano was the jewel of the Sahel, a centre of trade and commerce with walls 50 feet high and immensely thick, surrounded by a deep artificial gully making it an impenetrable fortress; a marvel to behold! It is this sense of security and opportunity, I believe, that made Kano a desirable place for my ancestors.

During colonial times, Kano increased in its majesty. The British administration modernised trade and industry, built hospitals, schools, and railways and improved the justice system by integrating and superbly implementing strategies that supported the rule of law and ameliorated the superficial old system. Kano’s commercial strategies were carefully designed to produce a positive net economic effect. For example, hide, skin, groundnut, animal feeds, meat and textile were exported to Britain. These export plans were supported by long-term government programmes that continued into post-independence Kano.

According to a World Bank report, Kano State’s mainstay is agriculture. It employs about 60% to 70% of the population producing rice, maize, millet, groundnut, beans, etc. Livestock production is another source of income for the farmers. The industrial output is from oil mills, textiles, tanneries, flour mills, and several others.

As the centre of commerce, Kano handles about 75% of finished goods from Lagos, Ogun, and Oyo industries. These are distributed to all the northern states and the neighbouring states of Niger, Cameroon, Chad, etc. From Kano, the following are exported: semi-finished leather, cotton lint, gum, hibiscus, sesame seeds and other minor items. All of the above have immensely contributed to enhancing Kano’s GDP as one of the highest in the country.

Unfortunately, the contemporary situation is rather bleak. Most of the factories have closed or have reduced their production capacity. Kano had about 30 tanneries producing over 45 million goats and sheep skins for export. In addition, over 7 million cattle hides were processed as finished leather for making shoes and other leather goods. However, there are only a dozen tanneries in production today. As for cattle hides, 90% of it is consumed in southwestern Nigeria as Ponmo or Ganda. In addition, cattle hides are imported from neighbouring countries and Mali, CAR, Sudan, and Saudi Arabia. The last textile to close was Angel Spinning and Dyeing Limited.

It is not a hidden fact that education has crumbled in recent years. Many children in Kano are poorly educated (the lucky ones?) and without a solution in sight. Although I am aware that education has exacerbated globally, for example, my father, 48 years older than me, is better educated in most branches of general learning. Kano is in the top five states in the country with substantial numbers of out-of-school children.

Healthcare facilities across the state are in a deplorable state. For example, the last time I visited the A&E department of a general hospital in Kano, I was sickened by the gruesome sight of accident victims on the floor, literally bleeding to death. In addition, there is an enormous disparity in the doctor-to-patient ratio, albeit not the worse in the country. It is, however, in the top ten states lacking doctors, with a ratio of 1 doctor for every 14,123 persons. To put it into perspective, the UN standard doctor-to-patient ratio is 1:600.

Kano used to be safe. Growing up, very few isolated incidences of theft were heard of in the city. Today, people get robbed in broad daylight. Thieves with sharp knives of all shapes and sizes attack people on the streets to rob them of their phones and other belongings; those who refuse to comply are fatally stabbed without remorse. Rape cases are rising exponentially. This year alone, over 1,300 cases of rape were reported. It is sad to see Kano vitiated.

The Kano of my dreams is the Kano my great-grandfather fell in love with. A Kano where there is opportunity and hope for everyone regardless of gender, ethnicity, or religion. A Kano where I feel safe walking any street at any hour of the day or night. A Kano where women can feel comfortable around men without fearing harassment or misogyny. A Kano with subsidised agricultural products such as fertilisers and an established avenue for creating liaisons with agencies that will be responsible for borrowing funds from the banks of industry and agriculture for the benefit of farmers, and this will increase productivity as well as employment.

Similarly, the Kano of my dreams will create an investment agency to secure funds from the Bank of Industry for the closed tanneries/factories and companies at low capacity. This will enhance business activity and employment. Furthermore, the Kano of my dreams will utilise Tiga Dam power generation to supply electricity to the industrial areas of the state and set a good precedence for the future supply of power to the entire state, either through hydroelectricity, solar energy, or thermal power.

The Kano of my dreams is a Kano where children are given quality education regardless of the social and economic status of the family they come from. A Kano where children do not go around begging for food on the streets. The Kano of my dreams is a Kano where hospitals are abundant, and doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers have all the needed equipment to make their jobs easier. A Kano where the large, proposed sports complex at Kofar Na’isa is turned into a colossal state-of-the-art medical centre to cater for the entire country. A Kano where neighbours assist one another.

I dream of a Kano where the rich invest more in local small-scale industries to boost production and employment rather than holidaying abroad and boosting the economy of the colonial order neglecting their brothers and sisters at home languishing in abject poverty. Lastly, the Kano of my dreams will have excellent and selfless leaders that genuinely care about the advancement of the state and will put in their utmost to see to it becoming the gem that it was, if not better than it was in days of yore. In sha Allah!

Ibrahim Abubakar won the 2^nd position in the 2022 “The Kano of my dream” writing competition jointly organised by Muhsin Ibrahim, PhD, and The Daily Reality online newspaper. He can be reached via ibrahimabubakhr@gmail.com.

By Rabi’u Muhammad Gama

Introduction

The Kano State Hisbah Board (hereinafter referred to as “the Board”) has been an object of controversy, particularly on social media, for quite some years – probably right from the inception of the Board. The controversy usually surrounds the way and manner by which the Board, or more properly, the foot soldiers of the Board (the Hisbah Corps), carry out its, supposedly, statutory responsibilities (functions), ranging from matchmaking, reconciling civil disputes between persons and/or organisations, seizing and destroying bottles of alcohol, imposing a certain mode of dressing on people to waylaying young people, especially males, when they seem to have a certain objectionable hairstyle considered to violate Islamic morals.

Even though some historical accounts of the philosophical underpinnings behind the evolution of Hisbah will be very rewarding for a better appreciation of the topic, this article restricts its scope to the constitutional status and the functions of Hisbah as provided for in the Kano State Hisbah Board Law No. 4 of 2003.

The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria

The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999, (hereinafter referred to as “the Constitution”) is the Supreme Law of the Land. It is the Law over and above which there is no other law. As such, if any other law, either deliberately or by necessary implication, happens to be inconsistent with the provision of the Constitution, the Constitution shall always prevail, and that other law shall, to the extent of its inconsistency, be void and of no effect whatsoever. See Section 1(1)(2)(3) of the Constitution.

The Constitution is not only the Biggest Law of the Land, but it is also the  Fountain Law of the Land from which all other laws flow. It (the Constitution) distributes legislative powers between the federal and state legislatures. Section 4(1) confers on the National Assembly(which comprises the Senate and the House of Representatives) the power to make laws for the whole country or any part thereof. Section 4(6) likewise empowers the State House of Assembly to make laws for the state or any part thereof. However, these powers are to be exercised within some certain constitutional limits: the National Assembly cannot legislate outside the Exclusive Legislative List and the Concurrent Legislative List, while the State House of Assembly cannot, and shall not, trespass upon the Exclusive List. This clear distribution of powers forms the foundation of the debate as to the legality of the Hisbah Board Law, but that should be a topic for another day.

In response to the then prevailing circumstances and mounting agitation for the reintroduction of Shari’ah in the State, which was sparked by the reintroduction of Shari’ah in Zamfara State, the Kano State House of Assembly exercised the powers given to it by Section 4(6) of the Constitution by enacting a law known and cited as “The Kano State Hisbah Board Law No.4 of 2003, which brought the Hisbah Board into existence.

The Hisbah Board Law

The Kano State Hisbah Board Law, 2003 (hereinafter referred to as “the Law”) came into force precisely on the 7^th  day of November 2003. The law is relatively short: it has 17 Sections only. Section 3(1) of the Law establishes for the State “…a Board to be known as the Kano State Hisbah Board”. “This Board”, says Section 5 of the Law, “shall be responsible for general policy-making as well as coordination of activities between State and…Local Government Hisbah Committees”.

Section 7(1) of the Law empowers the Board to establish the State “Hisbah Corps”, who, according to the Section, may be eligible for appointment as Justices of Peace. By virtue of Section 7(2), the Corps so established shall be under a Commander who shall be appointed by the State Governor. And the duty of the Commander of the Corps, by virtue of Section 7(3), shall be the general administration of the Corps.

According to Section 11(1) of the Law, the Board shall have a Secretary who shall be appointed by the State Governor. The Secretary to be appointed shall be a legal practitioner with not less than 6 years of post-call experience. That Secretary shall be both the legal adviser and the head of the legal department of the Board.

It is important to assert, at this juncture, that the Kano State Hisbah Board, in spite of the raging debate going on in the legal cycle, is a legal and lawful organisation/institution which is duly and validly created by the Kano State House of Assembly pursuant to Kano State Hisbah Board Law No.4 of 2003. See also the case of Yahaya Farouq Cheɗi v. A.G Federation (2006) 13 NWLR (Pt.997) 308  (CA).

Duties of the Hisbah Corps

The Hisbah Corps, created by Section 7(1) of the Law, is the most active arm/department of the organisation. The Corps is the foot soldiers and the chief executor of the responsibilities of the organisation. For the sake of clarity and precision, below are the functions, or rather, responsibilities of the Hisbah Corps, as provided for under Section 7(4) of the Law. According to the said Section, the Hisbah Corps shall have responsibilities to:

Render necessary assistance to the Police and other Security agencies; encourage Muslims to unite in their pursuit of justice; encourage kindness to one another; advise against acquiring of interest, usury, hoarding and speculation; encourage charitable deeds, particularly the payment of Zakkah; give advice on moral counselling; encourage orderliness at religious gatherings; encourage general cleanliness and environmental sanitation; reconciling of civil disputes between persons and/or organisations where parties are willing; assisting in traffic control; emergency relief operations; assisting in any other situations that will require the involvement of Hisbah.

Anything other than the above is beyond the statutory functions of the Hisbah Corps. This begs the question: can the Hisbah Corps give itself powers or functions that are not given to it by its enabling law? The answer is “No”! And one fundamental thing that can be deduced from the above functions is that the Corps seems not to have any “actual power” to execute anything. The Law seems only to empower the Corps to “advise”, “encourage,” and “assist”, nothing concrete and definite! The Hisbah Corps clearly has no power to arrest, detain, waylay or force anybody to do anything against his or her will. The Law could not be clearer, and it is there for all to see.

Conclusion

The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999, is the first and the ultimate law of the country, the Grundnorm of the Land, so to speak. It creates and empowers the Kano State House of Assembly to make law for the peace, order and good government of the State or any part thereof. It is in the exercise of these powers that the Kano State House of Assembly made the Kano State Hisbah Board Law No. 4 of 2003, which brought into existence the Kano State Hisbah Board. The Kano State Hisbah Board Law, 2003, also creates the Hisbah Corps and empowers it with some specific functions and/or responsibilities.

It is the view of this writer that any act, no matter how noble or well-intentioned, done by the Board or the Corps must be in accordance with the provisions of the Kano State Hisbah Board Law, 2003; otherwise, the act is illegal, unlawful and ultra vires. And where an act of the Hisbah Board, or the Hisbah Corps,  happens to be in conformity with the Kano State Hisbah Board Law, 2003, but not in conformity with the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,1999, or any other law validly made by the National Assembly, then the Constitution, or the law of the National Assembly, shall prevail and that act stands unlawful and illegal, no matter how religiously rewarding or well-intentioned the act is. See the case of Musa v. INEC (2002) LPELR-11119 (CA).

Rabi’u Muhammad Gama is a Law student; he writes from the Faculty of Law, Bayero University, Kano, BUK. He can be reached via rabiuminuwa327@gmail.com.

By MA Iliasu

The dilemma with Kano has always been about standards. So, naturally, Kano’s advantages and disadvantages in socioeconomic assets have outgrown everyone’s. The history of Hausa land and much of the Sahel will confirm that assertion.

Kano’s population was approximated in 2022 as the second largest in Nigeria after Lagos and sixth in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), ranking behind Lagos, Rivers, Delta, Oyo, and Imo. Kano is blessed with more than ten major markets across its rural and urban settlements, with Kantin Kwari and Dawanau serving as the largest textiles and food markets in West Africa, respectively. The state is enriched with the twentieth highest landmass in Nigeria, the biggest part of which is a prosperous arable land, with a favourable temperament that enables consistent rainfall and harmattan during rainy and harmattan seasons, on top of the twenty dams distributed across the rural economies of the state. Kano is one of the largest industrial hubs in West Africa, and the aggregation of these natural and human resources earns the state the title of “Centre of Commerce” in Nigeria.

By the same standard, however, the same factors make Kano an unfavourable environment. The massive population is more neglected than cared for, thus becoming a liability rather than an asset. There is a large number of out-of-school children roaming streets as beggars and hawkers, with many engaging in child labour. Many youths have been reduced to thuggery, thievery, and drug abuse. The economy is overwatched, yet doesn’t reflect in the state’s treasury by how the state rank lower in revenue generation, signifying, among others, the corruption and mismanagement holding its potential backward. The landmass is underutilised, with poor urban planning in the metropolitan areas and primitive agriculture in rural areas.

Consequently, signals of environmental hazards like crime, congestion, and flooding have become significant threats to the Kano metropolis. The dams have been neglected in the rural settlements. The widening gap between the rich and the poor makes the Human Development of the state ranks 28^th, according to Human Development Index (HDI) 2019, among the very worst in Nigeria. The income per capita of Kano is among the lowest, with its healthcare being one of the worst in Africa. As of 2021, the state could only hire one medical doctor to tend to the emergency unit of Murtala Muhammad General Hospital during the weekends.

The common factor in both the contrasting pictures is that Kano never does anything in small doses – it’s so-called standard. The Kano of my dream, therefore, is the one in which this standard is retained but only positively to enable the growth and development of the state to measure up to it.

In the Kano of my dream, agriculture and industry are the central focus. A coherent plan which utilises the twenty dams for irrigation farming in forty local governments has been implemented. And courtesy of that, the agricultural output from Kano has outranked every state in Nigeria and equals the capacity of many African countries combined. The landmark is achieved thanks to overwhelming human labour and fertile land, and after the state government widens its thinking beyond small partnerships with regional development banks by reaching out to international agricultural cartels.

A deal has been stroke with India, China, Nepal, and Thailand that sees to it all Kano dams have been utilised in exchange for an uninterrupted supply of agricultural output to the Asian markets. And the reliance on agriculture has paved the way for the flourishing of other farming and manufacturing industries, the rural economy, and infrastructure, which consequently ends rural-urban migration and reduces the pressure on metropolitan areas. Resurgence occurs in food and technology markets, with advanced research in agricultural institutes and massive employment generation for the teeming population. Agriculture is Kano’s largest labour employer for the first time this century. And the problems of unemployment, revenue generation, urban migration and planning, rural negligence, and food security have become negligible.

The multiplier effect of achieving such economic landmarks will, among others, boost the GDP, HDI, Per Capita Income (PI), and general economic buoyancy across all social classes, which in the Kano of my dream, enable investment in education and healthcare. The fantasies of free education and healthcare are now history. The government has seen the truth and intensified its efforts towards achieving a hundred per cent literacy rate and eighty years average life expectancy through massive investment in education and health infrastructure, with more than sixty per cent of its talent pool channelled to study science and technology.

The revolution in the education sector takes place in two dimensions. The first is by reconstructing the state institutions and equipping them with modern learning tools, recruiting more teachers and retraining them, and taking their remunerations to a world-class standard. The second dimension is by reshuffling the curriculum by removing the outdated, less relevant subjects and introducing modern, relevant ones, and rearranging the method of achieving Senior Secondary School Certificates (SSCE) by turning terminal examinations into grade point averages, the cumulative of which will determine whether a student qualifies to take the SSCE or not. Students who excel by having high cumulative grade points from their terminal examinations across six years of Secondary School education will be able to sit for SSCE and secure government scholarships. While those who have yet to excel will have to engage in compulsory remedial studies before they become eligible to write SSCE. That way, the higher institutions will admit students not by chance but by competence, making them more productive intellectual environments. Breakthroughs have since been recorded in research and innovation.

Investment in healthcare starts by providing each local government with a general hospital and enough health workers. Infant and women mortality shall be met with formidable maternal health departments. And health education shall be prevalent, especially among women.

The political culture in Kano of my dream is perceptive and intentional. The fusion of power between state and local governments is abolished, enabling a reformed, energetic, merit-based, transparent, and accountable leadership style of leadership that is appropriately informed by and with the major activities of the clerical, academic and social establishment in the state.

Sports and recreation are engaged with remarkable intensity by establishing sports academies to meet the demands of modern football, basketball, tennis, and boxing. Kids are trained at a young age, adults are funded to do their coaching badges, and sports entrepreneurs are granted smooth platforms to facilitate the transfer of Kano talents to major European and American leagues, revolutionising domestic football to a world-class standard. For the first time in football history, Kano Pillars, an African team from the Nigerian league, has won the Club World Cup, thanks to the formidability of local talents.

In the end, the Kano of my dream isn’t only distinguished with glowing physical features such as roads, schools, hospitals, and recreational facilities but also with a glowing soul, mind, and heart. The spiritual infrastructure is also revolutionised through changing mindsets, attitudes, and beliefs. As a religious society, we have admitted to the supremacy of destiny, one who greatly appreciates the purity of our hard work and ethics. And through the pursuit of this, we turn into reality the endless upward possibilities of our beloved ancient society.

MA Iliasu won the 1^st position in the 2022 “The Kano of my dream” writing competition jointly organised by Muhsin Ibrahim, PhD, and The Daily Reality online newspaper. He can be reached via muhada102@gmail.com.