The National President of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria, Baba Ngelzarma, on Sunday, raised the alarm that leaders of the association are being targeted by killers, calling for government’s protection.

Ngelzarma, who spoke to The PUNCH, confirmed the killing of the MCBAN leader in Katsina State, Alhaji Amadu Surajo,on Saturday, noting that the incident happened only three months after Surajo’s predecessor was kidnapped and had not been seen.

“It is getting out of hand,”Ngelzarma said. “Our members who held leadership positions in Kogi, Benue, Nasarawa and Katsina have been targeted by gunmen. Surajo was just three months in that position; his predecessor was kidnapped and we never heard anything about him. We call for the federal and state governments to ensure the protection of our members wherever they are.”

Suspected bandits killed the acting Chairman of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria in Katsina State, Alhaji Amadu Surajo, late Saturday at Mai Rana village in the Kusada Local Government Area of the state.

The assailants also killed three others and injured several people during the attack.

The incident occurred late Saturday night and continued into the early hours of Sunday when the hoodlums stormed the village.

The PUNCH gathered that the bandits kidnapped two of Surajo’s wives and one of his daughters, who is an undergraduate at a public university in the country.

However, a source familiar with the incident, speaking on condition of anonymity due to security concerns, revealed that the hoodlums later released Surajo’s first wife.

Before his death, Surajo served as the state Secretary of MACBAN before being elevated to acting Chairman of the Katsina State chapter of the association.

Reports indicate that Surajo’s rise to the acting chairman position followed the mysterious disappearance of the association’s National Vice President and Katsina State Chairman, Munnir Lamido, in June 2024.

Lamido reportedly left his residence in Katsina on June 23, 2024, for Kaduna State.

He informed his family during a phone call that he had stopped in Zaria to eat at a restaurant.

However, his whereabouts became unknown hours later. His vehicle and two phones were later recovered near Maraban Jos, just before entering Kaduna town.

He was declared missing by security operatives days later, and his whereabouts remain unknown.

Following Saturday’s incident, security operatives have been deployed to the community to restore peace and investigate the attack.

The remains of Surajo and the other deceased victims are expected to be buried later on Sunday morning in accordance with Islamic rites.

Meanwhile, the injured are receiving medical treatment.

Though Kusada Local Government Area was not previously considered a hotspot for insecurity in Katsina State, the attack has raised concerns. Some observers speculate whether the incident was an act of terrorism or had other motives beyond banditry.

Meanwhile, the Katsina State Police Command Public Relations Officer, ASP Abubakar Sadiq, told our correspondent in a telephone interview that he had yet to receive a briefing on the incident.

“I am yet to get the briefing, and once I do, I will let you know,” the PPRO said.

The Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, Taiwo Oyedele, has said it is possible for the current Value Added Tax structure to be kept as it is given the controversies it had stirred.

Oyedele said this on Sunday when he appeared on a live television programme on Arise TV to discuss the tax reforms proposed by President Bola Tinubu.

In October 2024, Tinubu introduced four Tax Reform Bills to the National Assembly to overhaul Nigeria’s tax system. The Bills – the Nigeria Tax Bill 2024, the Tax Administration Bill, the Nigeria Revenue Service Establishment Bill, and the Joint Revenue Board Establishment Bill – were to consolidate existing tax laws, streamline tax administration, and enhance revenue generation.

The proposed legislation has faced stiff resistance from various players in the country, as people argue that it would favour one section of Nigeria at the expense of others. Proposed reforms to the Value Added Tax were one of the main grief points.

Speaking on Sunday, Oyedele said what his committee proposed regarding Value Added Tax would benefit every part of the country.

He, however, noted that if the preference was for the current state, then his team was willing to oblige.

“There were two comments that Mr President made. His first point is that we have to do tax reforms. We cannot continue with the laws of the colonial era and hope that Nigeria will become a developed country. This tax system is holding us back. Then after a few other questions, someone asked a question again about whether he was willing to move and make a compromise, and he said, ‘Yes’. So his point is that we have to carry out tax reform.

“That is what is non-negotiable, otherwise, we will be missing out on a significant opportunity to move Nigeria forward. But in terms of the details of those bills, everything is up for grabs. I can tell you, as we speak today, if they want us to keep the current VAT formula, we’ll keep it 100 per cent. So, the fact that people keep using the problem we are trying to solve against us, is what I need to understand.

“We are saying today that Lagos State is getting the benefit for calls made in Kano, Kwara, in Ekiti. We say, let’s change that. And then you come out and say they want to take what we are doing in Kano to Lagos,” he said.

The tax reforms committee boss tracing the history of the VAT in Nigeria said, “It seems to me that the more we explain it, the more people try not to understand because a lot of people don’t even understand the current position of the law.

“Let me quickly explain what the problem is, the value-added tax was introduced in 1993 by the military. Implementation started in 1994 and that was to replace the sales tax that was being done by states.”

Oyedele stated that in 1999 when Nigeria got into the Fourth Republic, the country needed a constitution.

“The people that put the Constitution together pretty much replicated 1979’s. In 1979 there wasn’t VAT. So in 1999 when they introduced the constitution, VAT was missing, but the government continued to collect VAT. Some states like Rivers State and Lagos State are in court saying that VAT should be collected by the state because they feel that they are not getting enough for the contribution they are making into the VAT pot, and therefore if they collect it as a state tax, they will be better off.

“That is the equivalent of 100 per cent derivation. For us, as we’re working on these tax reforms. We said if we get states to start collecting VAT in Nigeria, it will be chaotic for business because we know for a fact that states in Nigeria will not respect input-output.

“So we said, how can we make everybody at least comfortable and address inequity? What did we identify? As of today, when companies remit their VAT, they tend to remit from their head office because that’s where they have the finance department. So MTN, BUA, Dangote, Airtel, all the banks, most of them are headquartered in Lagos. Some of the oil companies are headquartered in Rivers State,” he stated.

Oyedele affirmed that the tax reforms became important seeing that there was no VAT in the Nigerian constitution.

He went on to warn that if the tax reform bills were withdrawn from the National Assembly, it would be hard to represent them as he feared that consultations would be frustrated.

The four kidnap victims rescued by the Imo State Police Command’s Anti-Kidnapping Unit on Saturday have shared their experience in the hands of their abductors.

The victims, Mrs Carolyn Didia, Mrs Ego Odu, Mrs Apollonia Ezekwe, and Mr Godwin Ezekwe, were in the same vehicle when they were kidnapped on the Obosima-Ohoba road in the Ohaji/Egbema Local Government Area of the state on Friday.

According to the victims, they were ambushed by the gunmen while travelling to Owerri from their community in Awarra for a wedding, adding that the kidnappers shot at their vehicle, forcing them to stop.

The driver of the SUV conveying them was said to have attempted to flee but was caught and macheted by the kidnappers.

Speaking to our correspondent on Sunday, Godwin, a Lagos-based computer system merchant, said the gunmen first shot their vehicle from behind before another set ambushed them some metres ahead of them.

“I was on my way to Owerri on Friday evening at about 6 pm in a commercial vehicle with five other passengers for my niece’s wedding. When we were between Ohoba and Obosima, I saw some gunmen who started shooting at the back of our vehicle. As we drove fast ahead, we encountered another set in front and we had to stop. Our driver ran away after stopping the vehicle, but they pursued him, caught him and macheted him. We were six and they allowed two elderly women among us to go and took the remaining four of us into the bush which looked like the Sambisa forest. We trekked from about 6 pm till 3 am.

“We got to a spot and were asked to stay there. That was how they started to beat us. They asked us to call our relatives and tell them where we were and that they should send N150m. After a while, we all stayed on the spot and by 7 am, we started walking again till 12am on Saturday. The next place we got to, they discovered that people were passing there so we stopped again and they slept off in the process.”

It was then that a hunter saw us and went back to the community to inform others.”

Ezekwe said the moment other hunters came to the spot, the kidnappers became upset and shot him in his two legs. He added that the hunters rescued him and others from where he was taken to the hospital for medical attention.

In a video obtained by PUNCH Metro on Sunday, Odu, on her part, said the gunmen forced them out of the vehicle and started to beat the four of them.

She said, “I was heading to my sister’s wedding in Owerri to cook for her. The moment they ambushed our vehicle, they forced us out of the vehicle and started to beat us. I was not familiar with the area they took us to. We just kept walking till this morning (Saturday) until we were rescued.”

Another victim, Didia, lamented that they were forced to walk long distances, saying, “A tricycle was ahead of us when the incident happened but they allowed the tricycle to drive a bit far from us when five gunmen came out of the bush. They made us walk long distances in the bush as they started taking us from one point to another. That was how we moved till morning.”

The Imo State Police Command’s Anti-Kidnapping Unit in a statement on Saturday said it rescued the victims after a gunfight with the kidnappers, resulting in the death of two suspects.

The police spokesperson, ASP Henry Okoye, confirmed the rescue operation and the neutralisation of the two suspects.

He revealed that in the process of rescuing the victims, the police recovered one AK-47 rifle, 21 rounds of 7.62mm ammunition, and a magazine from the criminals.