Former Senate Leader, Ali Ndume has appealed to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to suspend the January 1, 2026, implementation of the country’s new tax laws amid growing controversy.

The federal lawmaker made the appeal in a statement he issued on Wednesday in Abuja.

This comes as the Nigerian Bar Association demanded the suspension of the implementation.

Recall that a member of the House of Representatives, Abdussamad Dasuki, had last week called the Parliament’s attention to alleged alteration to the tax laws.

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Chairman of the Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms Committee, Taiwo Oyedele, in an interview on Arise Television on Wednesday, called for calm over claims of alterations in tax laws and urged Nigerians to allow lawmakers to complete their investigation before drawing conclusions.

Speaking on the ongoing controversy about the tax laws, Ndume noted that proceeding with the implementation without getting to the root of the alleged forgery will create a legitimacy challenge for the tax laws.

His statement read, “With the controversy surrounding it, the President should constitute a team to verify the veracity of the claim and act accordingly.

“As the responsive leader that he has always been, he should look at it to find out if the copy that was signed and the claim of alterations are genuine so that he will do the needful to bring the controversy to rest.

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“If not, the controversy will continue.” That is to say, the tax law will not be implemented, because you can’t build on nothing.

“So, Mr. President should suspend the implementation until the issues are resolved because so many civil society organizations, the Arewa Community, and the Nigerian Bar Association are saying that he should withdraw the tax law and investigate the allegation of forgery.”

“Therefore, Mr President should get to the root of the allegation of forgery. The small committee that will be set up should look into it while the House of Representatives does its own.”

No fewer than 12 Tomahawk missiles were on December 25 launched against terrorists in Sokoto State by the United States military.

Rep Riley M. Moore, the lawmaker representing Virginia’s Second District in the Congress, confirmed this in an interview with Fox News.

The US military operated in Sokoto State on Christmas night, bombing terrorists killing innocent people in parts of Nigeria.

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Some security analysts claimed on Friday that the operation was unsuccessful and had no significant impacts on the targeted terrorists.

According to them, the airstrikes landed in safe places including farms where there was no history of terrorists’ hideout.

But details began to emerge on Friday night, indicating that several terrorists were killed during the joint operations between the US army and it’s Nigerian counterpart.

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Moore said: “This year, thanks to President Trump, Radical Islamic Terrorists were on the receiving end of 12 Tomahawk missiles as a present.

“The successful strikes on ISIS, in coordination with the Nigerian government, is just the first step to secure the country and end the slaughter of our brothers and sisters in Christ”.

DAILY POST reports that residents of Sokoto State have been panicking since the US military operation.

Flight operations at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, MMIA, Lagos, were disrupted on Friday following a ground handling accident involving a newly acquired Embraer 195-E2 aircraft operated by Air Peace.

The aircraft, registered as 5N-BYH, was scheduled to operate Flight P47750 from Lagos to Accra when a luggage conveyor belt truck belonging to the Nigerian Aviation Handling Company, NAHCO, struck one of its engines while it was on the ground.

The incident occurred after passengers had completed boarding.

The collision caused visible damage to the aircraft’s thrust reverser cowling, a component of the engine casing, prompting an immediate safety inspection and the grounding of the plane.

As a result, about 150 passengers already on board were asked to disembark, leading to delays and the cancellation of several scheduled services.

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A source disclosed that the aircraft was assigned to operate nine flight sectors for the day, all of which were affected, forcing many passengers to be rebooked or left stranded.

Beyond passenger inconvenience, the source noted that the incident carries significant financial implications, as repairs involving aircraft engines are typically expensive.

He recalled that a similar cowling damage earlier in the year reportedly cost an airline about $3.5 million to fix.

No injuries were recorded, and investigations have commenced to determine the circumstances surrounding the collision.

Efforts to obtain comments from NAHCO’s Assistant General Manager for Corporate Communications, Mr Tayo Ajakaye, were unsuccessful as he was unavailable at the time of filing this report.

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Meanwhile, the Director of Public Affairs and Consumer Protection at the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA, Mr Michael Achimugu, confirmed that the incident led to the disruption of Air Peace’s Lagos–Accra service.

In a post on X, Achimugu explained that passengers had already boarded when the ground handling equipment hit the aircraft, damaging the engine cover and necessitating deboarding.

He said the affected aircraft was scheduled to operate nine flight legs and that passengers booked on those flights would inevitably experience delays or cancellations.

According to him, the airline would face compensation claims, refund obligations and reputational backlash for a disruption that was not of its making, while also incurring substantial foreign exchange costs to repair the damage.

Achimugu referenced a previous incident involving a bird strike that reportedly cost the airline over $3 million to resolve, noting that it took nearly a month for a replacement engine cowling to arrive from the manufacturer.

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He added that the damaged aircraft was one of Air Peace’s newly delivered E2 jets and had been fully booked until January 15, 2026, meaning passengers scheduled on its future operations would also be affected.

The NCAA spokesperson stressed that airlines often cite “technical” or “operational” reasons for such disruptions rather than publicly attributing fault to service providers, even when the airline is not responsible.
He argued that poorly trained ground handling personnel should be held accountable for incidents that inflict heavy financial, technical and reputational losses on airlines.

Achimugu further disclosed that the NCAA is considering tougher regulatory measures, including stricter sanctions for service providers found culpable in similar incidents.

He urged passengers to be honestly informed about the true causes of flight disruptions and appealed for understanding from those affected, noting that while Air Peace has standby aircraft, they were already deployed to address other operational challenges and have lower seating capacity than the damaged E2 jet.

“These behind-the-scenes realities often make airlines appear culpable when they are not,” he said.