By Agabaidu Chukwuemeka Jideani

I was once again invited by some colleagues and PhD Scholars of Legislative Studies and members of the Nigerian Association of Legislative Practice Professionals, to proffer a view on the directives to the Clerk of the National Assembly to re-publish the authenticated copy of the ‘Tax Reform Legislation.’

A sound starting point for delving into the above is to pronounce, because it is unknown to many including scholars, that Nigeria has a, unique one-of its-kind in the world, tripartite distribution system for the authentication and publication of federal legislation.

The Acts Authentication Act[1] institutes a singular tripartite distribution mechanism for the authentication of federal legislation. Section 2 of the Act, mandates that, upon presidential assent, the Clerk to the National Assembly shall authenticate the enacted text and distribute identical authenticated copies in three directions as follows: one retained in the permanent records of the National Assembly, one delivered to the President, and one transmitted to the Chief Justice of Nigeria for formal enrollment in the records of the Supreme Court.

When this tripartite distribution is done, all subsequent reproductions, including those published in the Official Gazette of the Federation, must be printed directly from this authenticated master form.

This deliberate dispersal of authoritative copies across the three arms of government, legislature, executive, and judiciary, creates multiple independent institutional custodians of the definitive enacted text, thereby providing built-in verificatory safeguards against unilateral post-passage alterations while preserving a clear evidentiary hierarchy for determining textual fidelity.

This Nigerian mechanism is markedly distinct from authentication and enrollment practices in other common law jurisdictions, where finality typically attaches to a single enrolled or certified document, often protected by strong conclusive presumptions that limit or preclude judicial inquiry into textual integrity post-authentication.

In the United States of America, the authentication process culminates in the enrollment of the bill after signature by the Speaker of the House, the President of the Senate/Vice president, and the US President. The enrolled bill doctrine, firmly established by the US Supreme Court in the case of Marshall Field & Co. v. Clark[2], holds that a properly enrolled and authenticated bill is “conclusive evidence of its due enactment” and cannot be impeached by recourse to legislative journals or extrinsic evidence of irregularities in passage or textual discrepancies. This doctrine was reaffirmed in subsequent cases such as United States v. Ballin[3], and has been consistently applied to insulate enrolled statutes from challenges based on alleged deviations between passed and enrolled texts. While scholarly criticism has occasionally highlighted the doctrine’s potential to shield fraud, successful judicial overrides remain exceptionally rare, with courts prioritising inter-branch comity over exhaustive textual verification.

The United Kingdom, on the other hand, centres authentication on enrollment in the Parliamentary Roll following royal assent. Grounded in parliamentary sovereignty and fortified by Article 9 of the Bill of Rights 1689, the enrolled Act rule renders the text unimpeachable once recorded[4]. Courts are barred from examining internal proceedings or textual irregularities post-enrollment[5].

In other common law jurisdictions, like Canada, Australia, India, South Africa, Singapore, Kenya, and Ghana, they follow analogous unitary authentication models, in these jurisdictions, assent by the head of state, certification by legislative officers, and publication in an official gazette, without statutory provision for distributed inter-branch custody is the prescribed procedure and the practice. Finality attaches to the assented and certified document, with courts generally applying presumptions of regularity akin to or directly influenced by the enrolled bill doctrine.

Nigeria’s tripartite system thus stands alone among major common law systems in mandating distributed custody of identical authoritative copies across separate branches, deliberately facilitating independent cross-verification and enhancing resistance to undetected post-passage tampering.

This structural uniqueness has direct practical significance in addressing the alleged post-passage alterations to the 2025 tax reform statutes, the Nigeria Tax Act 2025, Nigeria Tax Administration Act 2025, Nigeria Revenue Service (Establishment) Act 2025, and Joint Revenue Board of Nigeria (Establishment) Act 2025.

Material discrepancies reportedly emerged between the harmonised texts passed by both chambers of the National Assembly, the versions transmitted for presidential assent in June 2025, and the initially gazetted publications, raising concerns over unauthorised insertions, omissions, or substitutions.

The leadership of the National Assembly, on the 26th of December 2026 issued a formal directive instructing the Clerk to the National Assembly to:

a) Re-gazette the four Acts; and

b) Issue Certified True Copies.

The Spokesperson of the House of Representatives of the national Assembly of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Hon. Akin Rotimi in a statement issued Friday 26th of December 2025 confirmed that there was a review in respect of the alleged discrepancies between the gazetted copy of the Tax Reform Legislation and the harmonized version of the Bills passed by the National Assembly. According to him, “the review is being conducted in full conformity with the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the Acts Authentication Act, Cap. A4, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, the Standing Orders of both Chambers, and established parliamentary practice…” Consequently, “…the leadership of the National Assembly, under the President of the Senate, Distinguished Senator Godswill Obot Akpabio, GCON, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Abbas Tajudeen, PhD, GCON, has directed the Clerk to the National Assembly to re-gazette the Acts and issue Certified True Copies of the versions duly passed by both Chambers of the National Assembly…”[6] (the italics are mine).

In its distilled state, the National Assembly directed the Clerk to re-gazette the four Acts using the authenticated tripartite master copies; and issue Certified True Copies (CTCs) drawn exclusively from the versions “duly passed by both Chambers and authenticated in accordance with the Acts Authentication Act.”

This directive squarely invokes the tripartite mechanism to restore textual fidelity. By mandating re-publication from the authenticated forms held by the Clerk, the Presidency, and the Supreme Court, it establishes an administratively authoritative baseline that overrides divergent gazetted versions. The issuance of CTCs further provides verifiable evidentiary instruments for courts, administrative agencies, and the public, ensuring enforcement aligns with legislative intent.

Despite divergent views, it is my considered opinion that the directive is legally sound. It flows directly from the Clerk’s statutory duties under the Acts Authentication Act to maintain and reproduce from the authenticated record, read alongside the National Assembly’s constitutional oversight of its legislative process (Sections 4, 58, and inherent legislative privileges). As a corrective measure limited to publication conformity, without purporting to amend the assented substance, it constitutes a lawful administrative act rather than an encroachment on executive or judicial functions.

The above being premised, it is important to note that in contradistinction to the conclusive enrollment doctrines prevalent in other common law jurisdictions and the US, the Nigerian Tripartite Distribution System (TDS) enables additional remedies as follows:

a) Evidentiary recourse in litigation: Courts may compel production and comparison of the three authenticated copies, potentially invalidating ultra vires provisions without violating separation of powers or inquiring into the internal legislative procedure, unlike the near-absolute bar in the cited cases of Field v. Clark or Pickin;

b) Legislative re-enactment: Introduction of fresh bills to cure substantive defects, preserving exclusive legislative competence under Section 4; and

c) Institutional or independent inquiry: Utilisation of the dispersed copies in Legislative, Executive or Judicial probes to independently establish accountability.

I am not unmindful of the growing calls to isolate and ascertain the criminal liabilities of the alleged perpetrators of the said post-passage insertions, but as they say in my grandmother’s village of Nteje Abogu, “Nne Ji Ya Iche” loosely translated to mean that “it has a different, albeit, maternal relationship” to the present discussion. Criminal liability, though important, is not the focus of this discourse.

In conclusion, Nigeria’s tripartite distribution system represents a deliberate statutory innovation that disperses authoritative custody across branches, distinguishing it sharply from the unitary, conclusively presumed models in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, India, South Africa, Singapore, Kenya, and Ghana. By mandating distributed custody rather than unitary conclusiveness, the tripartite system established a balancing act which permits targeted verification to safeguard against tampering or error, while still promoting certainty.

It thus innovates on common law traditions, offering enhanced transparency and inter-branch checks suited to Nigeria’s constitutional framework, without embracing the full insulation of the enrolled bill doctrine. This mechanism uniquely positions Nigeria to address textual infirmities institutionally and, if necessary, judicially, preserving legislative independence and Constitutional supremacy while upholding rule-of-law accountability.

In the ongoing 2025 tax reform controversy, I am of the view that it has enabled a swift, lawful administrative remedy through re-gazetting and CTC issuance while preserving robust avenues for deeper rectification, demonstrating its enduring value in safeguarding legislative integrity and constitutional fidelity.

Agabaidu Chukwuemeka Jideani, a Legislative Practice and Procedure Expert (amongst others) serve as the Director General of the Abuja Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

[1] Cap. A2, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004.

[2] Marshall Field & Co. v. Clark, 143 U.S. 649 (1892)

[3] United States v. Ballin, 144 U.S. 1 (1892)

[4] Edinburgh & Dalkeith Railway Co. v. Wauchope (1842) 8 Cl & F 710.

[5] British Railways Board v. Pickin [1974] AC 765, HL

[6] https://www.thecable.ng/breaking-national-assembly-to-re-gazette-tax-laws-over-alleged-alteration/; https://www.thisdaylive.com/2025/12/26/nassembly-directs-clerk-to-re-gazette-tax-law/