Former Vice President of the World Bank, Dr Obiageli 'Oby' Ezekwesili, has condemned the alleged gazetting of the wrong version of the tax reform act, saying it constitutes a grave threat to constitutional governance.

In a public notice on her X handle addressed to the Presidency and the National Assembly, the two-time minister in Nigeria lamented that the tax law, as gazetted, suffers from a deficit of both policy coherence and process credibility.

Describing the gazetting controversy as an assault on constitutional democracy, she wrote, "As a practitioner in economic policy, I am naturally disposed to support tax reforms that strengthen growth, equity, fiscal sustainability and state capacity — without compromising core principles of taxation or the credibility and legitimacy of the lawmaking process.

"All actions so far taken by the executive and legislative branches regarding the gazetting of a wrong version of the recently passed and assented Tax Reform Act constitute a grave threat to constitutional governance and must be halted."

What should have been a confidence-building, growth-enhancing reform, according to her, has instead become a source of confusion, distrust and resistance — driven largely by process failure, policy incoherence and political tone-deafness.

The version that was gazetted, she pointed out, reportedly contains constitutionally troubling provisions that raise serious concerns, including provisions lacking clear, traceable legislative origin; expansions of administrative discretion that weaken taxpayer protections; and federalism and legality issues that demand immediate clarification.

Consequent upon the foregoing, she urged the Federal Government to stop, rescind and reset the process in the public interest.

"I call on the executive and legislature to prioritise the public interest and immediately terminate and rescind all steps taken on the wrongly gazetted version; suspend implementation of any version pending a credible resolution; and restart transparently by returning to the legislature for a renewed process that begins from the public hearing stage, so Nigerians can see, test and trust the text that will govern them," the co-founder and founding director of Transparency International demanded.

To achieve this, she urged President Bola Tinubu to announce an immediate postponement of the implementation of whichever version is being treated as the operative Tax Reform Act until the integrity of the legislative text is resolved beyond doubt.

"Gazetting a wrong bill as an Act is prima facie unlawful and potentially unconstitutional. If the wrong version was knowingly substituted or altered, then it may also implicate serious criminal liability.

"It is, therefore, deeply troubling that the National Assembly appears to have proceeded by merely instructing a 're-gazetting' of the 'right version' without a transparent, independent inquiry into how this happened. That approach does not meet democratic standards. It compounds the harm," she said.

She also urged the executive and legislature to stop running Nigeria like a personal grocery shop, where rules are bent, processes improvised and the public asked to accept "corrections" without accountability.

"This pattern of the executive and legislature acting in ways that negate democratic norms of public accountability while ignoring public outcry cannot continue.

"A functioning democracy requires that when something this significant goes wrong, government triggers a system check: review, investigation, evaluation and full disclosure," said the Founder, School of Politics, Policy and Governance.

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