The tax policies of Anambra State Governor Prof. Chukwuma Soludo have come under renewed scrutiny.
According to Anaedoonline.ng, gun-wielding security operatives visited Kings Planet International School last Friday under the guise of demanding tax payment.
Food vendors in Awka have also complained the exorbitant tax levied on them, threatening to cease business in Anambra if the practice is not stopped.
The management of Kingsplanet International School, Awka, protested the security operatives’ actions on Tuesday, alleging that its staff and students were bullied, while others were traumatized.
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According to Anaedoonline.ng, the incident occurred last Friday, when an enforcement team from the Anambra State Signage Agency (ANSAA) and gun-wielding security officers entered the school to impose the payment of N100,000 for school signages.
When Newsmen visited the school, some members of the school’s employees, who run a creche, nursery, and primary arm, corroborated the occurrence, claiming that the school was in session when the team arrived last weekend.
“Because they were carrying guns, we decided to close the doors of the classrooms, to avoid the children seeing gun-wielding security men barging into the school premises, but the security men forced the classroom rooms open and commanded all the children to leave, saying that they have orders to shut the school.
“All the children were crying and running helter-skelter, including the creche section, which consists of very tender kids, but they showed no mercy at all.
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“In the process of the pandemonium in the school, there was power outage, but we tried to put on the generator, so we can use the CCTV in the school to monitor the movement of the children, but the security men refused,” said Modesta Odu, a teaching staff of the school.
The assistant manager of the school, Mr Emmanuel Emeka, lamented the level of trauma experienced by the pupils as a result of the incident.
“We begged them not to go ahead with their action as it will traumatise the kids, but they refused. You needed to be here to see how security men overran this place.
“Most parents who heard of it moved in to withdraw their children. Up till this moment, some of the children still feel bad when we have visitors in the school. We had to reach out to some parents to beg them to bring back their children.
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“We are really disappointed if this is how the Soludo government intends to go about tax. The team were in our school earlier to demand payment of N100,000 for four signboards. We told them we didn’t have up to that number of signboards, so they left, saying they will verify and get back, and the next thing we saw was the security men.”
The school administration urged the Anambra State Governor to rein in some of his aides’ excesses.
When Newsmen contacted ANSAA’s Managing Director, Mr Tony Ujubuonu, he stated that the enforcement was the consequence of a court order against the school.
He said that the school’s owner has been criticizing the agency on social media because of the enforcement, but he emphasized that the Anambra State government will not back down from doing the right thing.
Meanwhile, Anambra State food sellers protested hefty levy imposed by the state government on Thursday.
If the government maintained the tax structure, the traders threatened to stop supplying commodities to the state. The traders threatened to stop supply of goods to the State if the government continued with the tax regime. They alleged that the State government had been imposing heavy taxes on them for bringing in foodstuff to the State from the north.
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During a peaceful protest on Thursday, Mr Chukwuemeka Onyemechi, Chairman of Eke Awka Foodstuff Dealers Association, said some hoodlums allegedly working with government agents came to the market and stopped them from offloading their goods unless they paid N30,000 per truck instead of N8,000.
“They also insisted that we pay N20,000 for a truck with six tyres as against N5,000 and the sum of N6,000 for a Datsun truck as against N500 per truck. After the off-loading of goods, smaller trucks were forced to pay N3,000 as against N300 before the goods would be allowed to leave the market,” he lamented.
The traders would not be the first to protest about the state government’s tax policies.
Mr Jude Eze, a lawyer who spoke out over the perceived exorbitant tax, stated, “I do not think this is the greatest thing for the governor to do.” Nigerians are not as exposed to taxes, thus they should be pampered rather than subjected to the kind of punishment we see in the state on a daily basis.
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“Soludo must realise that the economy is very hard, so he cannot be billing the people for waste, business premises, and several others, just because he needs money, which he told us he can get from relevant agencies, during his governorship campaigns.”
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