Former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, has called on northerners to reassess their stance on President Bola Tinubu’s proposed tax reforms, which have faced criticism for potentially placing an undue burden on the region......Read The Full Article>>.....Read The Full Article>>
The reforms, under review by the National Assembly, have sparked significant concerns, with the Northern States Governors Forum (NSGF) and the Northern Traditional Rulers Council urging a comprehensive review.
During a Channels Television town hall meeting, Dogara encouraged northern leaders and elites to take a forward-thinking approach, emphasizing the potential long-term benefits of the proposed changes.
“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.”
