Periods of reform often attract controversy, but not every controversy reflects a constitutional crisis. In recent days, a series of commentaries has framed the National Assembly’s administrative actions on recently assented tax legislation as evidence of forgery, legislative subversion, or even a “coup”. Such claims are rhetorically powerful, but legally weak. When tested against constitutional law, statutory interpretation, and settled judicial reasoning, they collapse under their own weight.
At issue is a fundamental misunderstanding of how law functions in practice. Legislatures do not operate in a vacuum, nor are statutes conjured into legal perfection the moment a gavel falls. Between passage, assent, publication, and enforcement lies a carefully regulated administrative space designed precisely to prevent error, confusion, and misrepresentation. That space is not a loophole for abuse; it is a safeguard for legal certainty.
The National Assembly’s response to public concern has been measured, transparent, and grounded squarely in law. As formally stated, the leadership initiated an internal institutional review in line with the Constitution, the Acts Authentication Act, Standing Orders, and established parliamentary practice, while directing the Clerk to facilitate certified true copies and official gazetting for public clarity . This is not an admission of wrongdoing. It is the proper exercise of custodial responsibility over the legislative record.
*Not every discrepancy voids a law*
A central error running through the accusations is the assumption that any discrepancy between versions of a statute automatically nullifies the law. Nigerian courts, like courts in other common-law jurisdictions, have never adopted such absolutism. The law draws a clear distinction between substantive alterations, which go to the heart of legislative intent, and clerical, editorial, or publication errors, which do not.
Where the will of Parliament is clear from the Bill passed by both Chambers and assented to by the President, courts are slow to invalidate legislation on the basis of typographical mistakes, formatting inconsistencies, or errors arising in transmission or publication. To do otherwise would elevate form over substance and weaponise technicalities against governance. Constitutional integrity exists to prevent abuse, not to paralyse the state by turning fixable administrative errors into fatal defects.
*Authentication is not alteration*
Another recurring claim is that correcting a faulty gazette amounts to rewriting the law. This misunderstands both the nature of gazettes and the function of authentication. A gazette does not make law; it evidences law. Its purpose is to give public notice of an already completed legislative act. Where a gazette misstates, incompletely reflects, or inaccurately reproduces the assented text, correcting that record is not forgery. It is administrative rectification.
The Acts Authentication Act exists precisely for this purpose: to ensure that the authoritative version of an Act corresponds with what Parliament enacted and the President assented to. To argue that administrators must knowingly preserve an inaccurate public record, even after its inaccuracy is identified, is to advocate institutional negligence, not constitutionalism.
*Re-publication is not retroactive lawmaking*
Claims that re-gazetting “manufactures legitimacy after the fact” confuse sequence with substance. Legitimacy flows from passage and assent, not from the printing press. Where an error is discovered in the published form of a law, correcting that publication does not create a new law, nor does it retroactively amend legislative intent. It simply aligns public notice with constitutional reality.
The suggestion that the only lawful remedies are repeal or judicial nullification is equally flawed. Those are remedies for defective laws, not for defective records. Where the underlying legislative act is valid, repeal would be unnecessary and wasteful, while litigation would be an abdication of institutional responsibility. The law does not compel self-sabotage.
*Due process does not require paralysis*
The argument that any administrative correction must be preceded by plenary reconsideration misconstrues the separation of roles within Parliament. Legislative power resides in the Chambers; custodial and certification duties reside in the administrative machinery established by law. Requiring plenary votes to correct clerical or publication errors would not enhance democracy; it would cripple it.
More importantly, such an approach would incentivise mischief. Any actor seeking to frustrate governance could introduce or exploit minor discrepancies, confident that the resulting procedural gridlock would delay implementation indefinitely. Constitutional design does not reward such gamesmanship.
*Accountability and correction are not mutually exclusive*
Calls for accountability should not be dismissed, but they must be grounded in evidence, not conjecture. Administrative correction does not preclude investigation where wrongdoing is established. What it prevents is the dangerous leap from allegation to conclusion, from discrepancy to criminality, without due inquiry.
The National Assembly has neither asserted impunity nor demanded silence. It has urged restraint, transparency, and respect for institutional process while clarifying that its review is confined to procedure and does not concede any usurpation of legislative authority . That is how responsible institutions behave.
*Law must serve society, not theatrics*
Ultimately, the most troubling aspect of the accusations is their broader implication. If every administrative correction is framed as forgery, governance becomes hostage to sensationalism. If every error is treated as evidence of conspiracy, public trust is eroded not by institutions, but by exaggeration.
The rule of law is not preserved by freezing mistakes in place. It is preserved by identifying them, correcting them openly, and ensuring that the law Nigerians obey is the law their representatives actually passed. That is legality. That is morality. And that is precisely what the National Assembly has chosen to uphold.
In a constitutional democracy, vigilance is necessary. But vigilance untethered from law becomes distortion. Due process is not a coup. It is the quiet discipline that keeps the republic standing.
Yusuf writes from Abuja
