Yakubu Dogara has called for a chill out over the northern region’s criticism of the Tax Reform Bills before the National Assembly.
Since the introduction of the bills before the National Assembly, prominent figures in the northern region have blamed them. Millions of others in the region have called for a review of the bills which most of them described as against the north.
They have accused President Tinubu of being against the northern region, an argument which Dogara does not support.
“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 most substantial, ” Dogara, who is a former Speaker of the House of Representatives, said this on a Channels Television’s Special Town Hall on the Tax Reforms Bills.
From his words; “If he (the president) can pursue this to the end, it would be that there is no northern leader of my lifetime that has done what he 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 cornered just 5% of this global market size of dairies and beef, I tell you, that will give 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 blessed part of Nigeria.”
He (Dogara) believes there is no right time for reforms and called on Nigerians to support the President.
“I don’t even care if it was part of the president’s agenda,” he said. “All I am bothered with as a leader is, is it the right thing?” He concluded.
