TheNewsGuru

Tag: Nasir El-Rufai

  • El-Rufai, Adeosun meet Kaduna business leaders, tax payers

    Executive Governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai and the Honourable Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, will on Thursday, March 1, meet with business leaders, business owners and tax payers in Kaduna over the Voluntary Assets and Income Declaration Scheme (VAIDS).

    The Kaduna State Government is hosting the VAIDS Stakeholders’ Symposium, which is expected to have in attendance Executive Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Babatunde Fowler; members of the State Executive Council, members of the State House of Assembly and traditional rulers.

    Also invited to the sensitisation meeting are business owners and groups, tax advisers, captains of industries, professional and artisan bodies, and other strategic economic groupings within Kaduna State and environs.

    The Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, has identified regular tax payment by Nigerians as fundamental to the growth and development of the country.

    She noted that predictable tax revenue inflow would lead to more investment by the Federal and State Governments in infrastructure and job and wealth creation across the nation.

    “Payment of taxes is a fundamental requirement for our growth story. Nigeria has a very poor scorecard in tax payment. When oil came, we abandoned the old systems of tax collection that provided most of our infrastructure since colonial days.

    “Currently, we have just 14 million tax payers out of 70 million who are economically active. So, many people who should be paying are not paying anything. It is the development of taxes that will help the States and the Federal Government to achieve their true potentials,” the Minister said.

    She advised tax payers to take advantage of the tax amnesty opportunity to regularise their tax profiles, adding that tax defaulters would be subjected to investigations as well as made to face criminal prosecution for tax offences.

    The VAIDS programme, which commenced on 1st July, 2017, provides opportunity for tax payers to voluntarily and truthfully declare their assets and incomes before the March 31st, 2018 deadline.

    The Scheme embraces all Federal and State taxes such as Companies Income Tax, Personal Income Tax, Petroleum Profits Tax, Capital Gains Tax, Stamp Duties, Tertiary Education Tax, Technology Tax, Tenement Rates, and Property Taxes.

    It also covers all back taxes for the last six years in line with the statutory periods of limitation under the relevant tax statutes.

     

  • Buhari, beware of Nasir El Rufai by Richard Akinola

    By Richard Akinola

    Two days ago, Nasir El Rufai said he warned PMB not to appoint Aisha Alhassan as a minister as she could not be trusted. El Rufai talking of trust! Incredible!!

    Nasir El Rufai is a snake slithering through the crevices of the power edifice.

    In an interview granted to The Guardian in September 2003, as the head of BPE, when asked about allegations of corruption against the then Vice president, who was the supervisory official of BPE, El Rufai said they were all lies, that those making such allegations of corruption against Atiku didn’t know the then vice president.

    He said:” At BPE, l had a completely free hand. I took independent decisions and not once did the vice president even ask me to bend the rules. The bidding for the sale of any company, because of the way we structured it was so transparent that there was no way anyone could know who would win. So, if you cannot arrange anyone in advance and bribe someone to win, why should l pay somebody? But people want to believe the worst about our leaders and l don’t blame them because we have had leaders who had done all kinds of things. But l happen to know the story of Atiku Abubakar “.

    This was when his relationship with Atiku was chummy. It was reported that Atiku brought him to BPE but how far that is true, l don’t know.

    But barely three years later, El Rufai had jumped ship, switching to Baba’s camp in the feud between Baba and Atiku.

    Speaking on BBC ” Focus on Africa” on February 22, 2007, El Rufai said:” The president’s greatest worry about the vice president running for office is the wrong message it would send. The vice president has been engaged in corrupt activities for a long time…”

    How then can you trust someone who switches allegiance at the drop of the hat?

    No wonder Obasanjo said about a year ago about El Rufai:”Nasir’s penchant for reputation savaging is almost pathological… his weaknesses being his ability to be loyal to anybody on any issue consistently for long but only to Nasir El Rufai…l have heard how he ruthlessly savaged the reputation of his uncle, a man who was like his foster father. I shuddered when l heard the story of what he did to his half-brother in the Air Force who is senior to him in age…”.

    On this score, OBJ may be right. Was it not this same El Rufai, who is now pretending to love Buhari more than Aisha, who, in 2013 said the following against this same Buhari:

    “My advice to both Babangida and Buhari is for both to retire.

    Since Babangida libeled whole generations of Nigerian youth as being unfit for leadership, age has become an issue in the coming elections. While it is true that neither youth nor age supplies wisdom on their own, it makes sense to ask those who have been recurring decimals in our country’s sorry history to leave the stage. Our people surely deserve better. (I am) amazed that General Buhari cannot debate this matter without scurrying to the gutter, making claims that are baseless and unsupported by any facts…Buhari is perhaps one of the tiny few blinded by their prejudice from recognising (my) quality service.

    …It is strange that a Buhari who protests when unproven claims of N2.5 billion (about US 3 billion dollars in those days!) missing oil funds are leveled against him, can gleefully elevate similar claims into facts when it concerns another. How would Buhari feel if the corruption allegations made against him by Group Captain Usman Jibrin, then a board member of PTF, are today reported as if they were proven facts? So much for ‘corrupt background’ and ‘shoddy performance’.

    I wish to remind General Buhari that he has remained perpetually unelectable because of his record as military head of State, and afterwards, is a warning that many Nigerians have wisely heeded. His insensitivity to Nigeria’s diversity and his parochial focus are well-known “.

    Isn’t it curious that this same El Rufai is equally guilty of all he raised against Buhari? He knows when to be politically correct. The same man is pretending to be a Buhari loyalist today and campaigning for Baba’s re-election, while surreptitiously, deftly positioning himself.

    Baba, beware of this man. Or rather, l should put it more creatively as Alozie Ogugbuaja did on sign board at the gate of his Ikeja, Lagos home in 1986. Instead of BEWARE OF DOGS, Alozie poignantly put:” DOGS, BEWARE OF MAN”.

    Baba, please beware of this man called Nasir.

    He did it to Atiku, he did it to Obasanjo, he did it to Ribadu. He will do it again to you.

  • Photos:Yemi Osinbajo, Nasir El-Rufai, others attend wedding of Hakeem Belo-Osagie’s daughter

    Photos:Yemi Osinbajo, Nasir El-Rufai, others attend wedding of Hakeem Belo-Osagie’s daughter

    Beautiful daughter of billionaire businessman, Hakeem Belo-Osagie, Adesuwa got married traditionally to her husband, Tope Adekoya, in Lagos yesterday September 2nd.

    Top dignitaries at the wedding included Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, APC National Chairman, Chief John Oyegun, Governor of Kaduna State Mallam Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai, his wife Hadiza El-Rufai, and others.

    See more beautiful photos here…

     

  • Audu Maikori sues Governor El-Rufai

    Audu Maikori sues Governor El-Rufai

    Showbiz entrepreneur and lawyer, Audu Maikori has sued the Governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai for the gross violation of his human rights.

    In a suit (FHC/ABJ/CS/385/17) filed by his lawyers, Ballason’s Chambers at the Federal High Court, Abuja, Mr. Maikori, is seeking damages against Governor El-Rufai to the tune of N10 billion.

    According to details of the suit, which came up for hearing before the trial judge, Hon. Justice John Tsoho on Tuesday, 16th May, 2017, Mr. Maikori prayed the court to administer his fundamental rights against undue harassment and intimidation by the Kaduna State government, the State Governor and the Nigerian Police.

    Maikori was detained by the Nigeria Police on charges of incitement based on a petition by the Kaduna State government attributed to a tweet, which he later withdrew and apologized for when he discovered his driver had lied to him to obtain money deceitfully.

    After forceful social media pressure, he was released on bail and subsequently cleared of any complicity by the Police Force Headquarters only to be re-arrested again and whisked off to Kaduna after Governor El-Rufai publicly vowed to prosecute him during the Social Media Week 2017.

    Following his detention for four (4) days, he was charged to a Kaduna State Magistrate Court under Section 24 of the Cybercrime Act of 2015 but released on bail on medical grounds.

     

  • Despite expected release tomorrow, Ibori not coming home

    Former Delta state Governor, James Onanefe Ibori, who has completed his jail term in London and is due to be released tomorrow has dispelled rumours that he is returning to Nigeria immediately.

    Chief Ibori, in a statement signed by his Media Assistant, Tony Eluemunor, called on his well-wishers to disregard the rumours.

    A section of the media had speculated that the former governor, whose conviction and jail for corruption and money laundering in the United Kingdom has taken different turns in recent times, would return to Nigeria on December 23.

    “When the time comes, any important information will be made available to the public and nothing would be left for conjecture,” Ibori said.

    ‘Ribadu’s excesses, not me, removed him from office’

    Chief Ibori also in the statement berated an online news platform for dragging his name into the Senate refusal to confirm Ibrahim Magu as chair of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.

    According to Chief Ibori, “What makes it galling is that the matter under contention was the Department of State Security’s report that stopped the Senate from confirming Mr. Ibrahim Magu as the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, and did not warrant the dragging in of my name at all”.

    Chief Ibori particularly took exception to a report in Premium Times which said “based on pressure from political gladiators of the period (among which were former Governors James Ibori and Bukola Saraki), then President Musa Yar’Adua unceremoniously removed Nuhu Ribadu as chairman of the EFCC”.

    Ibori explained his position that Governor Nasir el-Rufai has exposed this claim as a terrible lie in his book, The Accidental Public Servant, adding that el-Rufai stated the source of the trouble the former EFCC chair, Ribadu had with President Musa Yar’Adua.

    “On page 358, in a section entitled ‘Umaru Asks Nuhu for Support: the Beginning of Our Trouble’ he (el-Rufai) wrote that Ribadu was so maddened that former President Olusegun Obasanjo had favoured Yar’Adua above Nasir el-Rufai to succeed him as President in 2007 that he told Yar’Adua to his face: “Well, Obasanjo has not told me, and as far as the presidency is concerned, I have my candidate for president, and that is El-Rufai”.

    “El-Rufai continued on page 359: ‘It took sometime before Nuhu figured out Obasanjo’s games and what was really happening. Nuhu’s instinctive reaction was that of a typical policeman – dust off EFCC’s files and comb for petitions against Umaru. Nuhu did not realize it at that time, but he was the one in trouble not Obasanjo or Umaru. He dusted off all the files against Umaru and launched investigations. He was clearly trying to take Yar’Adua out of the race and narrow all options to zero except for El-Rufai,” Ibori said.

    Ibori continued: “It is clear that from El-Rufai’s that there was no way a clear-headed Yar-Adua would have appointed a power-drunken Ribadu, who had unjustly arrested some Katsina state’s LGA chairmen just to demonize Yar’Adua to remain as EFCC Chairman, to continue to arrest people unjustly, play politics with his office and hypocritically claim to be fighting corruption when he was neck deep in the worst corruption, maligning others just because of politics.

    “Ribadu’s excesses, not me, removed him from office,” Ibori said.