The recent order from the National Assembly of Nigeria to re-gazette approved tax reforms due to “unapproved modifications” should raise concerns for every Nigerian who values constitutional democracy and adherence to the law.
Let’s be clear and truthful: this is not a mere clerical mistake.
This is not just a typographical error.
This is not an innocuous administrative oversight.
What Nigeria has experienced is the modification of a legislative document after it was approved by Parliament and signed off by Tinubu. In straightforward legal terms, such behavior constitutes forgery.
Within our constitutional framework, the law-making process is sacred. A Bill that has been approved by the National Assembly must be exactly the same in both substance and form as what is submitted for presidential approval and subsequent gazetting. Any deviation after passage is unlawful. Any modification after assent is an offense. Any attempt to “rectify” it surreptitiously through re-gazetting is an affront to constitutional governance.
By mandating a re-gazette, the authorities have inadvertently acknowledged a serious reality: the Nigerian populace has been subjected to a law that was not enacted by their elected officials. That alone should have prompted immediate inquiries, suspensions, and legal actions. Instead, we are being urged to “move on.”
But where are we to move on to?
To a nation where laws can be changed behind closed doors and simply republished once discovered?
To a republic where forgery faces no repercussions because it was perpetrated by the government?
Presidential assent does not legitimize illegality. Assent cannot rectify a document that Parliament never ratified. A gazette is not a law; it merely serves as documentation of law. When the gazette is false, the law fails.
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Even more concerning is the troubling precedent this establishes. If tax laws can be modified without repercussions today, tomorrow it may be electoral regulations, criminal laws, or statutes regarding property and individual rights. When this occurs, citizens are no longer governed by laws enacted through their representatives, but instead by documents created for executive convenience.
The silence surrounding accountability is the true scandal.
Who modified the document?
When was it modified?
Under what authority?
Why hasn’t any investigation been initiated?
In a constitutional democracy, forgery should be penalized, not quietly amended.
Re-gazetting without accountability fails to restore legality; it instead normalizes illegality. It conveys to public officials that the worst outcome of constitutional fraud is a discreet administrative redo. That is how the rule of law erodes—not explosively, but through bureaucratic apathy.
Nigeria warrants better. The Constitution requires better. And citizens must demand that no law—regardless of how well-intentioned—can endure if it stems from forgery.
Without penalties, there is no deterrence.
Without deterrence, there is no rule of law.
And without the rule of law, there is no republic.
