Return of Toll Gates: Ex-NANS President Tackles FG, Says Decision Violates Constitution

Ololade Adeyanju/

A former National President of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), Abdul Mahmud, has faulted the claim by the Federal Government that there was no law stopping it from having toll gate on federal roads.

Mahmud, while reacting to the announcement by the government that it had concluded plans to reintroduce toll gates on federal highways in the country, said the decision was unlawful because it violated the nation’s constitution.

Mahmud’s reaction was contained in a tweet via his handle, @AbdulMahmud01.

Mahmud wrote: “Lai Mohammed says, ‘there’s no law stopping federal government from having tollgates on highways’. There’s a law, Hon. Minister, Sir: “Taxes and Levies Act, 1998″. Sections 2, 3 and 4 are clear, Sir!”

Section 2 of the law being referenced by Mahmud states as follows:

No person, including a tax authority, shall mount a road block in any part of the Federation for the purpose of collecting any tax or levy.

1. Offences
   A person who—
   (a) collects or levies any tax or levy; or
   (b) mounts a road block or causes a road block to be mounted for the purpose of collecting
   any tax or levy,
   in contravention of section 2 of this Act, is guilty of an offence and liable on conviction to a fine of
   N50,000 or imprisonment for three years or to both such fine and imprisonment.

The Federal Government had yesterday announced plans to ensure the return of toll gates on federal highways in the country, more than a decade after they were phased out.

The Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, made the announcement while briefing State House Correspondents on the decision taken at the Federal Executive Council meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari at the Council Chamber, Presidential Villa, Abuja.

Fashola, flanked by the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, had also claimed there was no law that stopped the government from having toll gate on federal roads.

His words: “There is no reason why we can’t toll, there was a policy of government to abolish tolls or as it were, dismantle toll plaza but there is no law that prohibits tolling in Nigeria today. We expect to return toll plazas, we have concluded their designs of what they will look like, what materials they will be rebuilt with, what new considerations must go into them.

“What we are looking at now and trying to conclude is how the bank end runs.”

Fashola added that government was also considering to eliminate payment of cash by introducing electronic mode of payment.

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