2023: NORTHAN GOVERNORS OPPOSE POWER SHIFT TO SOUTH

Northern States Governors’ Forum at an emergency meeting on Monday in Kaduna

Governors of the 19 states in the North have opposed the call by their southern counterparts that the Presidency should be zoned to the South in 2023, Channels Television reports.

This formed part of the resolutions reached on Monday when the governors held an emergency meeting with traditional rulers in the region at the Government House in Kaduna State, the report stated.

According to the report, Chairman of the Forum and Governor of Plateau State, Simon Lalong, read out the communique containing the resolutions on behalf of his colleague which submits among others that zoning the office of the President as being agitated by southern governors is against the provisions of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, stating further that any president elected must meet the constitutional requirements which include scoring the majority votes, and polling at least 25 per cent of the votes cast in two-thirds of the 36 states of the Federation.

Governor Lalong noted that although some northern governors had endorsed power shift to the South, the regional governors collectively condemned such calls.

On the position of the governors regarding the lingering dispute between the Federal Government and states over the collection of Value Added Tax (VAT), Premium Times in its report captioned “2023: Northern governors reject rotation of presidency, back federal government on VAT”, submits that the governors also opposed the position of their southern counterparts on value added tax (VAT).

 “As responsible leaders, while we are constraint by the fact that the matter is subjudice, we however for the purposes of educating the public make the following observations:

“The judgement of the Federal high Court calls to question the constitutionality of VAT, withholding tax, education tax, Niger Delta Development Commission, National Information Technology Development Agency, 13% derivation, National Economic Development Council and many other currently levied and collected by the Federal Government of Nigeria, Federal Inlands Revenue Service.

“Rivers and Lagos State Governments had enacted their own VAT laws and the Southern Governors Forum have expressed support for this course of action”

Punch Newspapers reports that the Northern governors also said their Southern colleagues were confused about the collection of Value Added Tax. It states further that the Southern governors had said states have the rights to collect their VAT.

“VAT is being confused by these state governments as a sales tax”, Northern governors said. “If every state enacted its own VAT Law, multiple taxation will result in increases of prices of goods and services and collapse in interstate trade. VAT is not a production tax like excise, but terminal tax which is paid by the ultimate consumer.

“Another confusion is ignoring observation above and its “overall effect”. The reason Lagos account for our 50% Vat collection is because most of the telecommunication companies, Banks, manufacturing and other trading activities have their headquarters in Lagos with the resultant and wrongful attribution of VAT.

“Until and unless the Supreme Court pronounces judgement on the substantive matter between Rivers State and Federal Government, the matter is sub judice and Northern States Governors Forum would respect this.”