Nigerians have been tasked by the Governor of Osun State, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola on imbibing the culture of taxation.
According to him, for a developing country like Nigeria to meet up with the global requirements and cope along the trend of world socioeconomic and political challenges, taxation must be taken extra-ordinarily serious.
He said all the responsible, civilized and advanced countries of the world remained thriving and successful because they generate their resources from the taxes collected from the populace while under-developed and developing countries remain poor and backward because of their poor taxation culture.
Governor Aregbesola made the statement while addressing the leaders and members of the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE) Osogbo Branch‎, that came to present him the 2017 Group Dynamics Cup they won in the recent NSE competition.
‎The Governor attributed the socioeconomic challenges confronting the Third World countries of the world to their collective failure to premise government and governance on the resources generated from taxes.
Aregbesola maintained that the emerging economic realities remained the signal to the fact that no nation can survive without huge revenue from taxation.
He stressed that global economic realities have compelled seriousness on the need for government and the people of any country that desire development to prioritize taxation as the basis of revenue generation.
Aregbesola said, “It is unfortunate that most professions in our state ‎do not take the issue of their taxes seriously. That is why I want to appeal to the leaders of the NSE and other professionals in the state to rally round their members to correctly and appropriately assess themselves so as to pay appropriate taxes to government.
“Before the military interregnum ‎in Nigeria, taxation was a serious civic obligation and responsibility of every citizen and as a matter of fact, the liberty of the citizens was defined and determined by how the citizens fulfilled their tax obligations.
“At the time, negligence in the tax obligation had a citizen’s liberty circumscribed. But the military during its interregnum with the need for it to forcibly acquired legitimacy from the people, overlooked that very critical factor in modern society.
“The reason adults worked then was to serve themselves and serve the government because there was no other way government could get money outside the taxes paid by all entities, both human and corporate entities in their domain”.
Aregbesola added, “It is not a doubt that today, all developed nations in the world have one characteristic of sole means of revenue generation from taxes paid by their citizens.
“The advanced nations of the world generate much more of their resources from the taxes paid by their citizens and that is the only way for responsible, civilized and consequently advanced nations to generate their revenues.
“But backward, under-developed and primitive societies depend on natural resources that, in most cases, they do not even know where such resources came from. Their belief was once the natural resource is bringing the proceeds to them, they don’t want to know how effective their own assessment of the proceeds is.
“We just found that we all depend on rent to live our lives and any nation depends on such will just be living a mere existence.
“So, we must all come to the need to understand the essence of taxation in ensuring good governance. It is time for the citizens of the third world particularly African countries to rise to the challenges of poor taxation culture.
“We must begin to see taxation as inevitable civic responsibility of all and I am talking through the NSE to other professionals in Africa, particularly Nigeria, that the time to exist outside the law has gone.
“If we don’t take seriously the need for better and improved taxes, then we are sitting on a time bomb‎. So we must all be sensitized to the looming danger of that sole economy poses to us as a nation and as a race”.
Earlier in his remarks, the Chairman‎, Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE) Osogbo Branch, Engr. Haqib Adetomiwa Zubayr ‎commended Governor Aregbesola for always supporting the organization.
Engr. Zubayr also lauded the present administration in the state for providing an enabling environment for the members of NSE to practice and as well associate as a professional body.
He added, “”We are indeed very appreciative of your support for providing the enabling environment for us to practice and to associate as a professional body.
“We appreciate the laudable development your administration brought to this state in all aspects of life, particularly in the infrastructure sector.
“We are also grateful for appointing five Engineers into your cabinet, four as your Special Assistant‎ and Three Permanent Secretaries. We appreciate the laudable development your administration brought to this state in all aspects of life, particularly in the infrastructure sector.
“We are grateful for appointing five Engineers into your cabinet, four as your Special Assistant‎ and Three Permanent Secretaries”.
‎‎Speaking on the significance of the courtesy call, Engineer Zubayr said the visit was to bring to the Governor’s knowledge the outstanding performance of the members and leaders of the Osogbo branch of the NSE in the last national competition.
He disclosed that the Osogbo branch of NSE came first out of the 69 NSE branches in the country as NSE Branch Group Dynamics Competition which entails submission of comprehensive annual report of activities, programmes of the branch, evidence of good publicity, career talk, community awareness, relationship with government, maintenance of secretariat and audited financial report remains the hallmarks of all competitions in NSE.
Packaged by Rahman Salami
