A former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, has urged northerners not to criticise President Bola Tinubu over the proposed tax reform bills.

Since the bills were introduced in the National Assembly, many northern leaders have criticised them, with millions in the region calling for a review, claiming the bills target the north. In response, the Northern States Governors Forum (NSGF), representing 19 northern states, opposed the bills after a meeting with the Northern Traditional Rulers Council.

Speaking during Channels Television's town hall on tax reform bills on Monday, Dogara stated that governors and other elites criticising the bills were doing so from an uninformed perspective, urging them to consider the benefits of the reforms, especially in addressing key issues across the country.

He said, "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.

"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 organise 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."

Dogara also dismissed concerns over insufficient consultations and timing of the tax reform bills, arguing that what matters is whether the reforms are right, not the political agenda or past discussions.