The Human Right, Liberty Access and Peace
Defenders Foundation (HURIDE), has Condemned
President Muhammadu Buhari led federal
government over his continuous multiple taxation of
Nigerians.
The human right body in a statement issued in FCT
Abuja,the capital, said the indirect taxation was
obnoxious,ill timed,anti people, sacrilegious, evil,
lack of economic vision and therefore cannot stand.
In the statement signed by the chairman of Board
of Trustees of HURIDE, Dede Uzor A. Uzor, the
group said the taxation would increase the
sufferings ,hunger and poverty of Nigerians instead
of generating prosperity as was promised during
president Muhammed Buhari’s general election
campaign.
The Federal Government in the last few weeks has
said it would increase Value Added Tax (VAT), from
five percent to seven percent, introduce
Cashless policy which will make both depositors
and recipients to pay
2% percent in every 500, 000,.
The Federal Government also expressed its
intention to reintroduce Toll gates in all the Federal
roads, with South East said to be having 60 percent
of the Toll Gates.
It has also indicated its plan to impose
Communication tax, which will make every GSM
user to pay for every call he or she makes.
These, said the right group, coupled with the
boarder closure which has been biting hard on the
citizens would increase the sufferings of Nigerians
to an astronomical proportion.
With these policies, said HURIDE, the price of food
and other essential commodities were already going
up, stressing that the poverty level in the country
were being increase on daily basis.
HURIDE noted that some of these, if not all the
policies of the Federal Government were targeted
against the South East and South South geopolitical
zones, stressing that if what was being posted in
social media was true, about 60 percent of the
proposed toll gates were located in South East
alone, while the North with higher number of Frderal
road networks in the country and more budgetary
allocation on road construction annually would be
less than 30 percent of the toll gates.
The same, HURIDE, was applicable to cashless
policy in which all States in the South East, except
Ebonyi State were included, but only few States were
involved in the North.
The group condemned another Operation Python
Dance by the Military high command especially
during festivity which they was “sacrilegious and
clear disregard for the Christian dominated South
East”, lamenting that the previous exercises showed
that the period was the time the military slaughter
the many youths of the zone as were the cases of
Nkpor in Anamtbra State and Aba in Abia State in
the past.
The group called on all the stakeholders in the East
to resist this entrenched marginalisation of the zone
by the APC led Government, insisting that Operation
Python Dance should be taken to crisis torn States
like Borno, Katsina, Kaduna, Zamfara and among
others.
They said
” we want to place the international
community on notice over the continued policy of
bloodbath and marginalisation of the South East by
Buhari led federal Government.
They International community should prevail on the
Federal Government from going on with these
policies with unfriendly and obnoxious policies”.
Young-po Reporters 