From Godwin Tsa, Abuja
Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State has said the state is not fighting the Federal Government or any of its agencies over collection of Value Added Tax (VAT) as being insinuated in some quarters.
Speaking, yesterday, in Abuja at a public lecture entitled: “Taxing Powers in a Federal System, to mark the 60th birthday of Ahmed Raji, Wike said the state was only trying to pursue what was right and legitimate within the ambits of the constitution.
Represented by the Attorney General, Zacchaeus Adangor, Wike maintained that Rivers and the Federal Government were co-equal because they both derived their life from the constitution.
“I have heard a lot of comments being made that we are fighting the Federal Government, there is no desire or any intention of the Rivers government to fight the Federal Government.
“The principle of co-equality is fundamental to a federal arrangement, that principle leads to the principle of autonomy, autonomy leads to physical autonomy and physical autonomy leads to physical federalism and when you put all the principles together, what it means is that each level of government, whether federal or state is co-equal because none derives its life from the other.
“They both derive their life from the constitution because they have co-equality.
“That is the fundamental aspect of physical federalism and until we get it, we will continue this journey of talking without result but I think the court has a role to play, the court can lay this crisis and controversy to rest when it makes a pronouncement,” he said.
Also, Abiola Sani appealed to the judiciary to make definite and definitive pronouncement on the impasse surrounding tax collection in Nigeria’s federal system.
Sani, professor of commercial law, who was the guest lecturer, called on the National Assembly to use the ongoing constitution amendment to bring out clear taxing powers among the