No society is resolved simply by abolishing gun laws. It also weakens when citizens begin to suspect that the text designed to control them can be quietly adjusted after the function is over. Once a law loses credibility, enforcement becomes a contest of power rather than a discipline of legality. Compliance becomes a gamble, not a civic duty. This is the unsettling shadow that now looms over Nigeria's 2025 tax reform project – an agenda promoted as economic renewal but increasingly threatened by a credibility crisis that strikes at the heart of the constitutional order.
On the surface, it is hard to dispute the ambition behind the reforms. The Tinubu administration presented the package as a modernization effort: broadening the tax base, reducing distortions, simplifying governance, and creating a framework that supports growth while protecting the poor. Government spokespeople emphasize that most workers and small businesses will benefit, and that the reforms will help stabilize revenues without impacting enterprise. But policy intention alone is not enough in a democracy. The process is part of the product. The integrity of lawmaking is not a procedural nicety; This is the basis that makes difficult policies tolerable because people can trust that what is being implemented has been debated, voted on, and agreed upon.
From the beginning, reform efforts were met with skepticism – some ideological, some political, and some based on concerns about timing and implementation. That suspicion has now become more dangerous: the accusation that the law Nigerians are being asked to obey is not the law passed by their representatives.
The controversy came to the fore from within the legislature itself. On December 17, 2025, House of Representatives member Abdussamad Dasuki raised a matter of privilege, alleging that the gazetted tax laws available to the public differ materially from the versions debated, harmonized and approved by the National Assembly. This is not the usual theater of partisan protest. This is an institutional alarm bell: “I voted for one text; the country is now being governed by another.”
In the days that followed, the case refused to die the way inconvenient stories often die in Nigeria – under the burden of silence and citizen fatigue. The House constituted a committee to investigate the alleged discrepancies. Then came the most shocking development: On December 26, 2025, the National Assembly leadership directed that the tax laws be re-gazetted and certified true copies (CTCs) of the versions duly passed by both Houses be issued. Re-gazetteing is not administrative housekeeping you do when nothing goes wrong. That's what you do when authenticity is in dispute, when the state itself is not confident that the public record reflects the legislative record.
At the heart of this crisis is a deceptively simple question: What document is law? In theory, the Gazette exists to publish and preserve what was enacted. It is meant to be a public mirror of legislative intent, not a creative rewrite. If the mirror is distorted – whether accidentally, negligently, by interference, or by sabotage – the country faces not just confusion; It faces the possibility of being governed illegitimately by wearing official garb.
This is why the distinction between clerical error and physical change matters. Misnumberings occur in every legislative system – misnumbered sections, incorrect cross-references, and punctuation slips. Such defects can be corrected without shaking the constitutional system. But if the alleged differences touch substance – expanding enforcement powers, changing oversight, changing compliance thresholds, changing the terms of appeal – then the issue ceases to be editorial and becomes constitutional. And what has circulated in the public debate is not a matter of commas. It is a matter of power: whether tax authorities can reach deep into private lives with less security; whether due process is narrowed; Has oversight of elected representatives been reduced in the final text?
Also Read: Tax Reform in 2026: More Government Revenue or Relief for Citizens?
The executive has responded with two broad notes: urgency and assurance. The reform team emphasizes that the start date – January 1, 2026 – is important, warning that delay comes at a cost. Officials urged Nigerians to wait for the legislature's findings, arguing that proper comparison requires a certified harmonized version of the consensus broadcast – which, they indicate, is not widely available. Government communicators have also suggested that some resistance is motivated by misinformation and may be attempts at sabotage.
But urgency cannot cure illegality. In fact, urgency is often the excuse that illegitimate people use to get in the front door without being searched. Even if the reforms are economically sound – and Nigerians may debate this – no one escapes the collapse of the reform process. Any tax system runs on trust rather than pressure. Where citizens suspect that rules can be changed after a vote, compliance becomes malleable: people comply only when forced to, abstain when they can, and interpret taxation as extraction rather than contribution. Investors also have uncertainty about the price. They can bear heavy taxes; They do not tolerate unstable laws.
That's why professional and legal concerns matter. If differences are proven, uncertainty will spill over into compliance planning, contract assumptions, investment risk models and litigation strategy. Courts could freeze disputed portions, strike them down, or – if flaws in the process are found to be fatal – cast a long shadow over the enforceability of the law. A country cannot build a stable financial future on the basis of laws whose authenticity is publicly disputed.
The way out is not drama; This is documentary clarity. Nigerians need a visible chain of custody: the harmonized bill being passed, the enrolled bill transmitted for assent, the signed text, and the gazetted text – laid out side by side, clause by clause, differences marked and explained. CTC is not a courtesy; They are a constitutional requirement. When citizens must comply under penalty of perjury, they deserve certainty. Courts and businesses also require it.
If disputed provisions exist, the logical interim approach is to circle the sections pending verification – proceed with what is clear and set aside what is questionable. It doesn't hurt to improve; This protects the reform from judicial attack.
Ultimately, Nigeria should take this episode as a government warning, not a public relations inconvenience. In an era when a single changed paragraph can move billions of lives and rewire citizens' rights, we need a modern legislative integrity architecture: secure version control, audit trails from committee reconciliation to gazette through consensus, publicly accessible repositories, and strict consequences for tampering. If our banks can secure transactions with layered verification, the Republic can equally seriously secure its laws.
Dukuku Peterside is the author of two best-selling books, Leading in a Storm and Beneath the Surface.
