Amupitan, taxes and genocide
What does the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof.Joash Amupitan have in common with taxes and genocide? Add to this mix, Vice President Kashim Shettima and the existence of components of Sharia in the Nigerian Constitution and get a politically explosive mix. The word genocide evokes rage. Sharia could cause some people a […]
What does the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof.Joash Amupitan have in common with taxes and genocide? Add to this mix, Vice President Kashim Shettima and the existence of components of Sharia in the Nigerian Constitution and get a politically explosive mix. The word genocide evokes rage. Sharia could cause some people a heart attack. But they are not just words, they are academic disciplines. Yet, taboo. Overall, this blend of people and words has indirectly touched on social and religious sensitivities.
They have become hot topics and are shaping out to be the issues defining the presidency of Bola Tinubu and the upcoming 2027 presidential election. Starting with tax reforms, the president’s signature achievement; a policy disagreement between the northern states and the presidency broke out in October 2024 when the governors, alongside traditional rulers from the region rejected proposed tax bills from President Tinubu.
Their differences were really over money, specifically changes to how revenue from the Value Added Tax would be shared between the states. But it was the introduction of an inheritance tax, which differed from the inheritance laws under Sharia that the governors used to rally the region against the proposed bills. According to a communique credited to the governors back then, “companies remit VAT using location of their headquarters and tax office and not where the services and goods are consumed. In view of the foregoing, the forum unanimously rejects the proposed Tax Amendments and calls on members of National Assembly to oppose any bill that can jeopardise the well-being of our people.”
The governors finally reached a compromise with the president. The tax reform bills were passed by the National Assembly and were signed into law by President Tinubu in June 2025. The compromise however came at a cost. A wedge had been driven between Tinubu and Shettima, with the warmth between the presidency and the northern establishment turning lukewarm and over time, cold.
Then came the heated debates that started after President Donald Trump designated Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern in October 2025; accusing the government of not doing enough to protect Christians from genocide. The intervention brought to the fore, grievances of Christian communities in the north including killings, kidnappings and displacements of entire villages. President of the Christian Association of Nigeria, Archbishop Daniel Okoh, said in November 2025 during a visit to Jos, that “CAN has spoken clearly and courageously on this matter, and we stand unwaveringly by our position that there is Christian genocide in Nigeria”.
Trump escalated his threats to militarily intervene in Nigeria to protect Christians being killed by herdsmen, bandits and terror groups unsettling the Nigerian government and raising tension in the country. The north, socially, politically was in a pressure cooker. The cauldron it found itself in was about to get hotter. Eventually, the military response from the United States’ was coordinated with the Tinubu government and didn’t amount to much.
That didn’t calm frayed nerves. And it was under this atmosphere of mutual suspicion among communities that it emerged that Amupitan, who had only weeks earlier been sworn into office as INEC chairman, had written a legal brief supporting claims of a genocide of Christians in northern Nigeria. It gets worse. For several weeks now, the drums have been beating with calls for Tinubu to drop Shettima as his running mate and replace him with a northern Christian ahead of the 2027 presidential election.
The presidency didn’t start the campaign to drop Shettima. But it appears to relish the idea and has refused to put an end to the push. It is in direct contrast to how the presidency handled reported plans to replace George Akume as Secretary to the Government of Federation. So, political tension continued to build. The security challenges in the region, it seems, are being deployed to loosen its grip on politics.
The series of events offer context for the positions taken last week by the Supreme Council for Shariah in Nigeria when its president, Dr. Bashir Umar said Muslims will not recognise any election presided over by Prof. Joash Amupitan. The council also spoke on taxes, poverty and insecurity. Umar, a former CBN official, a scholar of Islamic Studied and an expert on Islamic finance, is in certain ways fit for this moment when politics, religion, law and finance overlap. He described the tax reforms as unjust and burdensome, while labeling the narrative on Christian genocide as dangerous. What the council left unsaid was the whispers that Tinubu plans to make a Christian the north’s representative in the APC presidential ticket. But clearly, the ticket is just as much a tipping point leading to the pushback from the council.
The accusation of genocide against Christians alone is enough to rattle the north. Genocide is an international war crime.
One feature that precedes every single genocide is the dehumanization of the victims. In Rwanda, Tutsis were relentlessly abused, called names and cockroaches in the mass media. More recently in Israel where genocide scholars like Omer Bartov, Raz Segal and even the International Association of Genocide Scholars think a genocide has taken place in Gaza; on television, social media platforms, commentators, including government officials were calling Palestinians human animals. You can’t start killing a group in the thousands without first convincing the public that the group is deserving of such treatment.
The dehumanization process is always the biggest red flag of a genocide in the making. There is no evidence those conditions exist in the north of Nigeria against any tribe or religion. In the aftermath of the Rwanda unrest, the entire Hutu ethnic group was held morally responsible and are today subjected to minority rule. In the same way, the entire German citizenry, for 80 years, generation after generation, have been held morally responsible for the Holocaust committed against the Jews in Europe during the Second World War.
So, it is understandable why Dr. Bashir Umar would find Amupitan’s opinion of a Christian genocide as being dangerous. Like Rwanda, the entire Muslim north would have to be held morally accountable to the extent of relinquishing political power at the vice presidential level and make way for the wronged group. That is how the unfolding political reality is appearing and the claim by those promoting the idea is that it is an expiation because Trump said so.
But that is not the only price being demanded. For decades, religious institutions and some civil society groups have been persistent in calling for Shariah courts to be expunged from the 1999 Constitution, sections 275 and 277 to be specific.
The sections limit the jurisdiction of Sharia courts to issues of marriage and divorce, inheritance laws and custody, guardianship of infants. Since Trump’s allegation of genocide, those calls to expunge Shariah from the constitution have only grown louder. Across the United Kingdom, there are about 85 shariah councils, in spite of its secular nature. Their existence have been exploited and led to attacks from far-right ant-immigrants politicians. Even Donald Trump has waded in.
The Muslim Arbitration Tribunal in the UK, has no legal powers. It operates under the Arbitration Act 1996. To enforce its rulings, it needs validation from a High Court. Its existence, however, says a lot to the degree Muslims in the UK have options in resolving disputes on inheritance and personal finance. And they make up only five per cent of the population in England and Wales. Attempts were made recently to set up similar arbitration panels in Ogun, the response was swift and vicious. Yet, in Nigeria, they make up at least 50 percent of the population. The tolerance level is different in the north.
That does not mean Shariah cannot be expunged from the 1999 Constitution. The National Assembly only needs to vote for it, along with 24 of the 36 state houses of assembly. And with the Muslim north on a back foot, the Supreme Council for Shariah in Nigeria is advocating for that not to happen. However, these issues form the basis of its recent stand on Amupitan, tax reforms and genocide. Not everybody is comfortable with the whole talk of genocide or entrusting those who believe in its truth with sensitive public office. A former presidential spokesman, Dr. Reuben Abati in a television commentary, responded to the Shariah council’s stand with a call for the DSS to invite Dr. Bashir Umar. That would set a bad precedent for all religious figures and institutions voicing opinions on religious tolerance, public policy and politically sensitive issues.
Shuaib, a journalist, resides in Abuja