Former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, has urged calm amid rising criticism of the Tax Reform Bills from the northern region.
The bills, currently before the National Assembly, have sparked widespread backlash in the north, with prominent figures and millions of residents calling for their review.
Critics have described the bills as being against the interests of the northern region, accusing President Bola Tinubu of targeting the region with his fiscal reforms.
Dogara, however, dismissed these claims, cautioning against drawing divisive conclusions.
He said, “And lastly, I want to talk to my brothers in the North. I don’t think this is the time for us to begin to condemn the president and to begin to say that on account of these bills, he is anti-north because I want to remind us that the president has done something that is significant,” Dogara, who is a former Speaker of the House of Representatives, said on a Channels Television’s Special Town Hall on the Tax Reforms Bills.
“If he can pursue this to the end, it would be that there is no northern leader of my lifetime that has done what the president has done for the north. And I will tell you [what he has achieved] is the creation of the livestock ministry. There is a global business around that. The global market size of dairies, of beef in the next three years will rise to about $2.5 trillion. You can Google it. So if in the north, we are able to organize ourselves in such a way that we can corner just 5%, just 5% of this global market size of dairies and beef, I tell you that gives us $250 billion.
“We don’t need VAT from any state in Nigeria to survive. The North can survive on its own. We are the most endowed part of Nigeria.”
He believes there is no right time for reforms and called on Nigerians to support the President.
He added, “I don’t even care if it was part of the president’s agenda. “All I am bothered with as a leader is: is it the right thing?”