Yakubu Dogora, a former speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. on Thursday lashed at Northern leaders, especially, governors for the backwardness of the region.
Dogara accused some of the governors for spending public resources, junketing around the globe with their family members in the name of looking for investors.
Dogara stated this in a keynote address on at a Town Hall Meeting on tax reforms, organised by the Christian Awareness Initiative of Nigeria (CHAIN) for Christian leaders in the north in Kaduna.
According to him, once some the federal allocation is shared, some governors storm bureau de change in Abuja to travel out with their families on the pretext of looking for investors.
He regretted that the North had ruled the country for 40 years without bringing development to the region.
Dogara said even if the north remains in leadership position in the country till eternity, nothing will change for the better, unless northern leaders are determined willing to tap and harvest the economic values of natural resources that abound in the region.
“My brothers and sisters let me tell you where our problem is and why we must demand for change.
“I don’t know if you have been observant. At the end of the month when they pay federal allocation, just notice when they paid, count one to three days, if you are in the business of dealing with dollars, go to zone 4 in Abuja and see what is happening.
“Just count more five days, and check the location of the people processing our wealth in the north. I don’t want to call their names, but some of you know who and who I am talking about”, Dogara said.
According to him, those
protesting against the Value Added Tax, (VAT) those who feel they would be cheated and are opposed to the tax reforms.
“If you check, 80 per cent of them are not in Nigeria, they are in Dubai, Brazil , Egypt, America.
“They go to so many other countries. What are they doing there , only God knows.
“If they are looking for investors and business partners after many years of junketing, after federal allocation, what have they brought home?
“That is where our real problem is. If you are wealthy and you want to travel, just go into the first class cabin of any aircraft, you will be shocked to see that their three or five years old child have first class seats.
“That is where the money is going.
Dogora said even if the leadership of Nigeria should remain in the north till eternity it will not change anything.
“If it is possible, we would have been a mini Dubai the north having ruled for 40 years”, he said.
According to the former speaker, Nigeria is lagging in taxation law, stressing that every investor will need a simple understanding of tax laws.
He said Nigeria has 11 laws dealing with taxation, pointing out that the Tinubu administration wants to reduce the 11 tax laws to only two.
He said Northerners are not asking the right questions about the reforms.
We are all Northerners and I want to tell us that our problem is not that some southerners or ‘Lagos Boys’ or President Tinubu has connived to cheat the North out of Value Added Tax (VAT).
“That is not the question we should be asking; not at all. Some have spoken about positions in government.
They talk about the way people are being given appointments and so forth.
“Is that the reason why the North is not developing? I want to ask us to interrogate ourselves.
“To me that is not the question we should be asking. As a matter of fact there was a time in this country when the President was a Northerner, the Senate president and the speaker were Northerner, all the security heads were Northerners, 22 most senior positions in NNPCL, 20 of those positions were occupied by Northerners. How did the north fare? Did we do better?
“So the truth is that the problem of the north is not denial of appointment opportunities because we have had it so much , it doesn’t work for the north.
“It is not even allocations of funds or even fair distribution of VAT. We have so much trillions coming to the north. It has not helped us. The problem is not even the presidency; the north has ruled the country for over 40 years, where are we today.
“The problem is that northerners are not asking the right questions
“The right questions should be on the allocations we are getting from the federation account, the VAT we are getting, where is it?…
“We (Northern leaders) are a disgrace, and that was the point I am trying to make. I don’t think we don’t share in the blame, that is the truth.
“The biggest dairy farm in Nigeria and west Africa is located in Ogun State, not in Kaduna or Kano or Sokoto, Jigawa, or Kebbi. How is the Lagos State launching agro processing centre in west Africa when Lagos State doesn’t have ten hectares of land?
