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The recent directive by the National Assembly of Nigeria ordering a re-gazette of assented tax reforms due to “unapproved alterations” should alarm every Nigerian who believes in constitutional democracy and the rule of law.
Let us be clear and honest: this is not a clerical error.
This is not a typographical oversight.
This is not a harmless administrative lapse.
What Nigeria has witnessed is the alteration of a legislative instrument after it was passed by Parliament and assented to by the Tinubu. In plain legal language, that conduct fits squarely within the meaning of forgery.
Under our constitutional order, the process of law-making is sacred. A Bill passed by the National Assembly must be identical in substance and form to what is presented for presidential assent and eventual gazetting. Any deviation after passage is illegal. Any alteration after assent is criminal. Any attempt to “correct” it quietly through re-gazetting is an insult to constitutional governance.
By ordering a re-gazette, the authorities have inadvertently admitted a grave fact: the Nigerian public has been subjected to a law that was not passed by their elected representatives. That alone should have triggered immediate investigations, suspensions, and prosecutions. Instead, we are being told to “move on.”
But move on to where?
To a country where laws can be altered behind closed doors and simply re-published when discovered?
To a republic where forgery attracts no consequence because it was committed within government?
Presidential assent does not sanctify illegality. Assent cannot cure a document that Parliament never approved. A gazette is not law; it is only evidence of law. Where the gazette is false, the law collapses.
More disturbing is the dangerous precedent this sets. If tax laws can be altered without consequence today, tomorrow it may be electoral laws, criminal statutes, or laws affecting property and personal liberty. When this happens, citizens are no longer governed by laws made through their representatives, but by texts produced through executive convenience.
The silence on accountability is the real scandal.
Who altered the document?
When was it altered?
Under whose authority?
Why has no investigation been announced?
In a constitutional democracy, forgery is punished, not corrected quietly.
Re-gazetting without accountability does not restore legality; it normalises illegality. It tells public officers that the worst consequence of constitutional fraud is a quiet administrative redo. That is how the rule of law dies not with a bang, but with bureaucratic indifference.
Nigeria deserves better. The Constitution demands better. And citizens must insist that no law however well-intentioned survives if it is born of forgery.
Without consequences, there is no deterrence.
Without deterrence, there is no rule of law.
And without the rule of law, there is no republic.
Chief Malcolm Emokiniovo Omirhobo is a legal practitioner and public-interest advocate.
SB E-news.
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