Borno State Governor Babagana Umar Zulum believes Lagos State will be the biggest beneficiary of the controversial tax reform bills that have passed their second reading in the Senate.

Zulum, an ally of President Tinubu, has been one of the fiercest critics of the bill.

He attempted to clarify his position on the controversial bill in an interview on Sunday’s edition of Channels Television’s Politics Today, stating that he was not an enemy of the current administration.

In the past few weeks, the controversial bills have pitted the 36 state governors against the Federal Government, with the former calling for the withdrawal of the bills to create room for more consultation.

The governor emphasized that they had run the numbers and concluded that the rush to pass the tax bills was needless as it favors only Lagos, Nigeria’s former federal capital.

He said, “I am not an economist. But based on the calculations we did, only Lagos will benefit from this scheme. However, we have had a series of consultations with the FIRS team and had a meeting with the tax team of Lagos State. Lagos told me that they would lose a lot if this were implemented. They said, ‘We did our research and concluded we will lose.’

“Then why are we in a rush? Not only Northern Nigeria but also the Southeast, South-South, and even the Southwest will be severely affected. Only Lagos will benefit from this scheme. But what we are telling them is to give us time. Why are we in a rush? Let us pause and have a deeper consultation because we are in a democracy.

“We should look at the nitty-gritty of these bills before passing them into law. This is our only bone of contention. Then, people started saying that Prof Zulum and the governors were against the president. This is a democratic setting. People want us to run a garrison democracy. Most of this money will go to Lagos. We need more time.”