RE-GAZETTING A FORGED LAW IS NOT REFORM — IT IS OFFICIALISING CORRUPTION

 

 

RE-GAZETTING A FORGED LAW IS NOT REFORM — IT IS OFFICIALISING CORRUPTION
By Chief Malcolm Emokiniovo Omirhobo

The recent directive by Nigeria’s National Assembly to re-gazette assented tax reforms due to “unapproved alterations” is not merely a legal embarrassment. It is a flashing red warning light exposing how deeply corruption has penetrated the machinery of Nigerian governance.

Let us strip this issue of euphemisms and bureaucratic language.

This was not a clerical error.
This was not a typographical mistake.
This was not an innocent administrative oversight.

What occurred was the alteration of a law after it was passed by Parliament and assented to by the President. In plain legal terms—and more importantly, in plain moral terms—that is forgery. And forgery at this level is not just a crime; it is institutional corruption.

In any functioning constitutional democracy, the law-making process is sacrosanct. A Bill passed by elected representatives must be identical in content and form to what is presented for presidential assent and eventual gazetting. Any alteration after passage is illegal. Any alteration after assent is criminal. Any attempt to quietly “correct” such an act through re-gazetting is not reform—it is a constitutional cover-up.

By ordering a re-gazette, Nigerian authorities have inadvertently confessed to a devastating truth: Nigerians were governed, even if briefly, by a law that their representatives never passed. In a serious country, this admission would trigger resignations, criminal investigations, and prosecutions. In Nigeria, it has triggered a bureaucratic shrug and an invitation for citizens to “move on.”

But move on to what?

To a country where laws are doctored behind closed doors and legitimised after exposure?
To a system where corruption wears a suit and speaks legalese?
To a republic where criminal acts attract no consequences simply because they occur within government?

Presidential assent does not purify illegality. It does not launder corruption. A forged document does not become lawful because it bears an official signature. A gazette is not the law; it is only evidence of the law. When that evidence is tainted, the law itself collapses.

This episode reveals something far more dangerous than a flawed tax reform. It reveals a culture of impunity—a governing mentality that treats the Constitution as an inconvenience and accountability as optional. It tells public officials that even if they tamper with the nation’s laws, the worst that will happen is a quiet administrative redo.

That is corruption in its most sophisticated form.

If tax laws can be altered today without consequence, tomorrow it may be electoral laws. Next, criminal statutes. After that, laws governing land ownership, free speech, or personal liberty. When this line is crossed, citizens are no longer ruled by laws made through democratic representation, but by texts manufactured through executive and bureaucratic convenience.

The most damning aspect of this scandal is not the forgery itself—it is the silence on accountability.

Who altered the document?
When was it altered?
On whose instructions?
Who benefited?
Why has no investigation been announced?

In Nigeria, corruption is often discussed as stolen money. But corruption is far more lethal when it corrupts process, institutions, and law itself. A country where laws can be forged and quietly corrected is a country where corruption has outgrown theft and matured into governance.

In a constitutional democracy, forgery is punished, not patched up. Re-gazetting without consequences does not restore legality; it normalises criminality. It teaches public officers that constitutional fraud carries no personal risk. And that lesson, once learned, is repeated endlessly.

This is how the rule of law dies—not with tanks on the streets, but with files adjusted in offices and silence in high places.

Nigeria deserves better. The Constitution demands better. Citizens must insist that no law—no matter how well-intentioned—can survive if it is born of corruption.

Without consequences, there is no deterrence.
Without deterrence, corruption becomes policy.
And without the rule of law, Nigeria ceases to be a republic in anything but name.

Chief Malcolm Emokiniovo Omirhobo is a legal practitioner and public-interest advocate.