I watched keenly, the presentation of the Minister of Information Lai Mohammed to the members of the National Assembly. He spoke convincingly and justifiably on the suspension of Twitter in Nigeria. He attempted to contact the gullible people with his arguments of archaism.
He forgot to state the employment opportunities given by the social media while passionately raising his points of negative conviction to the Nass members. As an activist, I can boldly support my leader Comr. Femi Falana in faulting the Federal government on shutting down social media.
Social Media (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Twitter e.t.c.) provides the biggest industry of employments to the Nigerian youths. The minister spoke about these Companies not remitting tax nor being registered with the federal government as under the Company and Allied Act before doing business in Nigeria.
The statement from the minister about registration and tax payment is baseless and faulty in many sense. This is like telling Gmail, YahooMail, game apps, Calculators, FaceTime, Google maps, weather apps, telegram, Xender, YouTube etc to pay tax and get registered. Are we so dumb? These are Apps that have their terms and agreements with the network providers. It is like telling GTBank App, First Bank App and other Banks Apps to pay separate tax from That which their main bank remits to CBN like MTN, Airtel, Glo and other linked with these apps do.
For shouting out loud, these network companies already pay their taxes and these Apps works directly with networks not on their own. If one does a transaction on Facebook for instance, it’s passes through your Masters Debit Card, Visa Cards Interswitch etc and after one is charged by banks who pay directly to you, the government still want them to pay? There is direct and indirect taxation in basic Commerce/Economics and someone needs to explain this to the federal government.
Poverty and unemployment has risen exponentially and the Nigeria youths are the direct victims of these ill policy and superimpositions. We struggle through school after strikes upon strikes coming out without jobs and employment. We struggle to rent shops with different endless taxations from government ranging from signpost to security fees. We struggle to pay both the rent and security fees without power to run these shops but depending solely on generators. We still pay for security fees but hoodlums break in and carried away our goods with no security after payment. We run to the police to incident the matter, they collect monies ranging from opening files to going to make arrest, then end up granting bail to the criminals when monies have been given to them, denying us justice. What does the federal government wants from the Nigerian youths?
I want to on behalf of Nigeria youths state that the federal government should not generate policies that will push the youths to the wall like they did with #EndSARS as the youths are more determined to fight back legitimately compared to that of EndSars. The social media has save us from these exorbitants shops and bottle necks by buying and selling online. Even if the government comes against me today, I have paid my dues and waiting for their arrest, for no one can shut the voices of conscience.
*Comrade Israel Joe*
Delta State Secretary
Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (Cdhr)
24/06/2021
