Former speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, has appealed to northerners to reconsider their criticism of President Bola Tinubu’s proposed tax reform bills.
The bills, currently before the National Assembly, have drawn sharp opposition from northern leaders and calls for a comprehensive review, with concerns that the reforms may disproportionately affect the region.
The Northern States Governors Forum (NSGF), representing 19 states, echoed these reservations after consultations with the Northern Traditional Rulers Council.
During a Channels Television town hall meeting on the tax reform bills on Monday, Dogara urged northern governors and elites to adopt an informed approach, emphasising the potential long-term benefits of the reforms.
“I want to talk to my brothers in the North,” Dogara said. “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. I want to remind us that the president has done something significant.
“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—the creation of the livestock ministry. There is a global business around that.
“The global market size of dairies and 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.”
Addressing concerns about the timing and lack of sufficient consultations on the tax reform bills, Dogara dismissed these issues, stressing that the primary focus should be on the potential benefits of the reforms rather than political considerations or previous engagements.
