Chairman of the Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms Committee, Mr Taiwo Oyedele, has said the National Assembly has the constitutional authority to suspend the planned January 2026 implementation of Nigeria’s tax reform laws amid allegations that parts of the legislation were altered after passage.

Oyedele made the disclosure on Monday during an interview on Channels Television while responding to claims that sections of the tax laws, as recently gazetted, differ from the versions passed by the National Assembly.

He noted that even before the allegations of alteration surfaced, there had been increasing calls from some quarters for the suspension of the reforms, adding that opposition to the new tax framework has largely been driven by misinformation and fear rather than the substance of the laws.

According to Oyedele, any decision to delay or suspend the implementation of the reforms falls outside the mandate of the tax reform committee and rests solely with lawmakers.

“If we even want to postpone the implementation of the law, it has to be the lawmakers. That’s far beyond my pay grade,” he said. “That decision has to be made, and I believe it will depend on what their findings from this investigation reveal.”

However, he cautioned that halting the reforms would mean retaining a tax system that disproportionately burdens low-income earners and small businesses. Oyedele said the current framework leaves about 98 per cent of workers overtaxed, while small businesses continue to grapple with multiple taxation without benefiting from meaningful exemptions.

He added that suspending the reforms would allow minimum taxes to continue to apply to low-income earners and non-profitable businesses, while the existing value-added tax regime would keep driving up the cost of basic consumption, including food, healthcare and education. At the same time, he said, wasteful and distortionary tax incentives would remain in place.

“So we need to be clear about what we are asking for,” Oyedele said, stressing that calls for suspension must be weighed against the economic and social costs of maintaining the status quo.

On the way forward, Oyedele said that even if investigations confirm that substantial alterations were introduced after the laws were passed, such provisions should be isolated and treated as invalid.

He explained that his preferred approach would be to implement the laws as duly passed by the National Assembly, while separately investigating how the disputed provisions were introduced and determining appropriate corrective actions.

Oyedele also accused vested interests of mobilising unsuspecting Nigerians against reforms designed to benefit the wider population through the spread of fear and misinformation.

Addressing the possible source of the alleged discrepancies, he attributed them to systemic weaknesses and heavy reliance on manual processes throughout the legislative and executive workflow. He noted that bills undergo several stages — including note-taking during debates, harmonisation between the House of Representatives and the Senate, legal review by the Ministry of Justice, presidential assent and eventual gazetting — all of which involve manual handling.

According to him, the absence of robust quality assurance mechanisms at these stages creates room for errors or unintended changes, not only in the tax laws but in legislation generally.

Oyedele said the controversy should be seen as an opportunity to strengthen Nigeria’s lawmaking and gazetting processes, ensuring that laws passed by the National Assembly accurately reflect legislative intent and are not tampered with.

The controversy followed concerns raised last week by a member of the House of Representatives, Hon. Abdulsammad Dasuki (PDP, Sokoto), who alleged discrepancies between the newly gazetted tax reform laws and the versions approved by the National Assembly.

Dasuki said a comparison of the House and Senate proceedings, the harmonised bills and the gazetted copies revealed material differences, prompting the House to promise an investigation. The development has intensified calls for the suspension of the implementation of the tax reform laws scheduled to take effect in January 2026.