LAWYERS are still not satisfied with the reduction in the Lagos State Land Use Charge (LUC).
They have threatened to take to the streets again except the government returns the charge to its former rate.
Rising from a meeting yesterday, the Ikeja branch of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) gave the government seven days to revert the LUC.
Its Chairman, Adeshina Ogunlana, said “NBA Ikeja will go on the streets again next Thursday’’, if the government failed to do so.
“Where the government neglects, fails and refuses to positively consider these positions, the NBA Ikeja will organise and embark on another protest action on March 29 to make the government truly answerable to the electorate”, he said.
Ogunlana said the government’s 50 per cent reduction was not acceptable because it ‘’falls short of expectation’’..
The NBA described the so-called reduction as a sham, insisting that the ‘’tax must go’’.
The NBA chief said: “The reduction is a sham, a farce and a fraud because the rates prescribed now subjected to reduction are based on a fraudulently extractive foundation. There was no proper evaluation of properties. Property owners were never aware or involved in any evaluation of their properties. So what we had from government is ghost evaluation. So when the government says it is slashing cost, they are only deceiving people: the amounts prescribed are mere fantasies of their imagination.
“We reiterate our rejection of the LUC, high litigation cost in the court, borehole levies and all such other oppressive, illegal extortionate charge of Lagos State. The LUC Law 2018 as known now must be repealed.”
The NBA said it has lined up no fewer than 3,000 lawyers to defend property owners in the event of government’s prosecution for non-payment of the new charge.
“No Lagosian should be in a hurry to pay the charge. No payment should be made until the government listens and bows to the people’s will”, he said.
Ogunlana urged the House of Assembly to within seven days publish in the newspapers the proposed draft of the reviewed LUC Act for residents and stakeholders to study for their participation in public hearings that will precede any amendment to the law.
The association, he said, was appalled by the government’s reduction of the tax and the assembly’s call on the public to appear before its committee to review the purported cut.
He argued that such invitation should be accompanied with a draft of the proposition, which must be sent to the invitees ahead of hearing.
Ogunlana asked the assembly publish the proposed amendment and give the public no less than a month for its study before the hearing.
NBA’s intervention, he said, was not against taxation or an increase, adding that Lagosians should only accept taxes that are only transparent, gradual, reasonable, legal and utilised.