Tax Reform Bill: The south must refuse to be gaslit against the North – Reno Omokro

Northern Nigeria is the only region in Nigeria that has given majority votes to a non-Northerner in an election where a fellow Northerner was a major candidate.

Not an ‘I also contested’. I mean a major candidate with a realistic chance of victory.

They have done it twice and each of those times, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu played a significant role.

On June 12, 1993, Chief Moshood Abiola won in most Northern states, including Kano, where he got 52.3% of the votes to Bashir Tofa’s 47.7%. Incidentally, Tofa was from Kano.

Chief Abiola also won in Kaduna, with 52.2% of the votes, Jigawa, with a stunning 60.7%, Borno, with 54.4%, and Yobe, with an overwhelming 63.6.%.

In all, Chief Abiola won in nine out of sixteen Northern States.

The second time this occurred was on Saturday, February 25, 2023, when President Tinubu secured 2,652,824 votes from the Northwest, which is more than three hundred thousand votes above the 2,279,407 he got from the Southwest.

That meant that the President won the election in the Northwest by 39.64% of the votes. He also polled 1,760,993 votes in the North-central, making him the winner there with 38.58% of the total votes.

President Tinubu won the #NigerianElections2023 by winning in the Northwest, North-Central and Southwest. His closest rival, Waziri Atiku Abubakar, won in one region, the Northeast, where he comes from. Peter Obi won in two areas: the Southeast and Southwest-South.

From the above, any reasonable person can see that the facts do not support the claims flying about that the North hates the President and the Southwest. After all, the best judge of the present and the future is the past. And Arewa has more than proved itself a dependable friend and ally of the Southwest.

Northerners are not cowards. They do not vote for who they do not support.

That is why I urge all Nigerians to be aware of the fact that there is actually a large-scale false flag operation on social media, where certain persons have created multiple fake profiles to set the North, especially the core North, against the Southwest by promoting fake theories, such as that the Tax Reform Bill is anti-North and the North is anti-Tinubu.

Simultaneously, they are also promoting the lie that President Tinubu went to France to sign a treaty with President Macron to bring in French troops to wipe out the North.

The intention is to damage the fraternal relationship between the North, especially the core North, and the Southwest.

These are the same people who infiltrated the Days of Rage protests with a foreign flag and gaslit some unsuspecting Northerners to call for a military takeover.

And that is why, again, I urge all supporters of the President, especially those from the Southwest, not to swallow the bait and begin to take an anti-North stance on social media.

Insults do not kill. If they did, I, Reno Omokri, would have died between 2011 and 2015. But I am very much alive.

President Bola Tinubu is on a marathon, not a sprint. So help him by not taking the bait.

Again, let me reiterate that if you love President Tinubu, please don’t say anything negative about Arewa or Northerners over this Tax Reform Bill.

Always have it at the back of your mind that President Tinubu got more votes from Northern Nigeria than from Southern Nigeria.

Therefore, your job as a supporter of the President is to convince and persuade, not to attack and antagonise. Even if you are insulted, think before you react or respond. Are Arewa noted for insults? I do not think so.

Thus, do not play into the hands of those who want to use this Bill to divide Nigeria.

Do not forget that we live in a country where those condemning the detention of Dele Farotimi for alleged criminal defamation are the same set of people who celebrated when a member of the All Progressives Congress named Pastor Okezie Atani, was arrested and detained for exactly the same alleged crime.

Many Nigerians do not support what is right. They support who they like.

Reno Omokri

Gospeller. Deep Thinker. #TableShaker. Ruffler of the Feathers of Obidents. #1 Bestselling author of Facts Versus Fiction: The True Story of the Jonathan Years. Hodophile. Hollywood Magazine Humanitarian of the Year, 2019. Business Insider Influencer of the Year 2022.