Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has urged the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas “to urgently assess the human rights impacts of Nigeria’s reform bills currently being discussed by the National Assembly including on Nigerians living in poverty.”

SERAP in a letter said, “any discussion and consideration of the tax reform bills must ensure full compliance with provisions of the Nigerian Constitution 1999 [as amended] and the country’s international human rights obligations and commitments.”

In the letter dated 7 December 2024, and signed by its deputy director, Kolawole Oluwadare, the organisation said: “The assessments should be transparent, include public participation, and shape the provisions and measures that are ultimately passed. The outcome of any such assessments should be widely published.”

SERAP urged Akpabio, and Abbas “to pass a resolution directing Mr Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice to hold Nigeria’s state governors to account on their spending of trillions of naira of revenue derived from taxes including VATs collected by their states since 2015 and to ensure the recovery of any proceeds of corruption.”

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The letter read in part: “SERAP urges you to ensure the inclusion in the tax reform bills of transparency and accountability mechanisms to ensure that any revenue derived from taxes covered under the bills are not mismanaged, diverted or pocketed by politicians, their family members and close associates.

“SERAP notes that Nigerian authorities have the discretion to develop laws on taxation most appropriate to their circumstances.

“However, the Nigerian Constitution 1999 [as amended] and human rights and anticorruption treaties to which the country is a state party impose limits on the discretion of the authorities in the development of any such laws.

“Our preliminary review of the provisions of the tax reform bills shows that the bills contain some provisions that are antithetical to human rights and the rule of law.

“For example, section 28(2)(c) of the Tax Administration bill among others, requires financial institutions including banks to provide to tax authorities ‘the names, addresses, or any other information of new or existing customers.

“Under section 28(4), financial institutions must make ‘additional disclosure” about their customers ‘if it is required by a notice signed by the Chief Executive Officer of the relevant tax authority.’

“These provisions, especially the phrases ‘any other information’ and ‘additional disclosure’, if implemented, could be used unjustifiably or arbitrarily to restrict the right to privacy of customers.

“The risks of violations of human rights are illustrated by the absence in the bills of sufficient safeguards against abuse of access to personal data of customers.

“The provisions also give little or no consideration to data protection, thereby increasing the risks of misuse by public authorities of a customer’s personal details including their home address.