State creation not Nigeria’s problem

Most Nigerian political leaders are very good at leaving substance to chase shadows. Oftentimes, they are propelled by selfish intentions. Last week, the House of Representatives Committee on the Review of the 1999 Constitution regaled us with a proposal for the creation of 31 additional states in Nigeria. From their proposal, the North-Central will have additional seven states. Some of them are Benue Ala state and Okun state. North-East has four proposed states, including Amana and Katagun states. North-West also has four proposed states which include New Kaduna and Tiga states. South-East has five proposed states including Orlu, Aba and Etiti states. South-South was allocated four additional states. They include Ogoja, Warri and Bori states. South-West got seven additional states. They include Ibadan, Lagoon and Ijebu states. 

Speaker, House of Reps, Abbas Tajudeen

If this proposal sails through, which I doubt, it means Nigeria, with a population of about 200 million people, will have a total of 67 states. The United States of America with a higher population of over 340 million has 50 states. The questions are: do we need more states now? How have the existing states fared in extending dividends of democracy to their people?

At independence in 1960, Nigeria operated a regional system – Northern Region, Western Region and Eastern Region. There was healthy competition among these regions. The North was known for its groundnut pyramid. The South-West thrived on its cocoa while the South-East flourished with its palm oil. In 1963, the Mid-western Region was carved out from the Western Region. Then came the military coup and counter coup of 1966 which truncated the democratic experiment and later snowballed into a 30-month civil war.

Out of political expediency and apparently to cripple the wings of the secessionists, the military regime of Yakubu Gowon created 12 states on May 5, 1967. The military regime of Murtala Mohammed made it 19 states in 1976. It was the military regime of Ibrahim Babangida that made it 21 states in 1987 with the creation of Akwa Ibom and Katsina states. In 1991, Babangida created additional nine states. General Sani Abacha’s military junta created six new states in 1996 to make it a total of 36 states. The Federal Capital Territory (FCT) was formed in 1976 and has been the capital of Nigeria since 1991.

State creation has largely ensured the political and economic domination of the South by the North. The South contributes more to the national treasury but the North takes more share because it has more states and local governments. This has fuelled cries of marginalization in the South and agitations for true federalism. 

The truth is that the agitation for more states will not end even if the National Assembly succeeds in creating the touted 31 new states. If you check very well, you will discover that agitations for more states are largely engineered by politicians who want to corner greater share of the national cake or billions of naira worth of contracts. The smaller the state, the easier it is for them to gain political patronage.

In June 2024, the Senator representing Delta North in the Senate, Ned Nwoko, presented a bill for the creation of Anioma State to make it the sixth state of the South-East. In his proposal, the state should be made up of nine local government areas in the present Delta, which is in the South-South.  He said his proposal would help correct the imbalance in geopolitical distribution of states in Nigeria. Nwoko’s proposal came a few days after a bill to create Orlu state from portions of Abia, Anambra and Imo states passed a second reading in the House of Representatives. The proposal was sponsored by Hon. Ikenga Ugochinyere.

Rather than create new small states for greedy politicians to grab power and control resources, the National Assembly members should initiate moves to create additional one state in the South-East to balance the zone’s representation with other zones. Afterwards, they should concentrate their efforts more on restructuring the country. Such restructuring will involve devolution of power from the centre to the federating units such that every state and zone will have a sense of belonging in the country.

In other words, what Nigeria needs now is a return to true federalism and abrogation of the 1999 constitution imposed on the nation by the military. There should be a new constitution which will make provisions for part-time legislators rather than the present arrangement whereby lawmakers milk our scarce resources in the name of law making. The National Assembly should take a second look at the far-reaching recommendations of the 2014 national conference as well as the 1994-1995 Constitutional Conference. Creating more states will make no serious impact when the central government controls 68 items on the exclusive legislative list.

The lawmakers should also take another look at the implementation of the federal character principle and quota system aimed at entrenching equity, fairness and justice in the country. Currently, this principle is observed in the breach. Or how do you explain that nepotism appears to be the cardinal principle of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). When Muhammadu Buhari was in the saddle as President, he concentrated major appointments around people of his ethnic stock. This riled many Nigerians. Incumbent President Bola Tinubu has continued in that trajectory. This should bother our lawmakers.

They should also bother about the fact that there is no equity in the admission of students into our unity schools. A child from Anambra State who scores 130 in the entrance exams may not gain admission whereas a child from Zamfara who scored just two marks will automatically be admitted. This same child from Zamfara may manage to graduate with a pass. He will likely get a plum federal job ahead of the Anambra child who paid his way through private schools and graduated with first class or second-class upper division. This is grossly unfair.

Nigeria has been living a lie, mouthing one nation, one destiny. The fault lines have expanded and there is little or no genuine allegiance to the country. A pragmatic National Assembly will look for a way to galvanise the people and bring about the much sought-after unity in the country. What is the essence of balkanizing the country into small states when that will not bring any meaningful development and when most of the existing states are not viable.

The major argument of the agitators for additional states is that it will bring governance and development closer to the people. They also say it will ensure equity in the sharing of national resources and political participation. This is true to some extent.

Nevertheless, the major development I see with new states is that it will lead to the building of more posh government houses to satiate the new powers that be. If many of the existing states cannot pay N70,000 minimum wage, what magic will the new states do? Is it not the same federal allocations that almost all of them depend on? I believe agitations for equity in sharing of national resources will cease the moment the country is restructured such that power is devolved from the centre down to the federating units.

Re: Atiku and el-Rufai are phoney defenders of democracy

Dear Cassy, I enjoyed your column last Monday. Nasir el-Rufai’s antecedent doesn’t make him a better alternative in 2027. His publicly confessed religious bigotry should ordinarily disqualify him from holding any position in Nigeria again – whether elective or appointive. Trusting power in the hands of a man who threatened that foreign election observers would return to their various countries in body bags in 2019 is very dangerous. I am glad that Tinubu turned down his ministerial appointment. The senate under Akpabio’s leadership couldn’t have dared to reject him as a ministerial nominee if Tinubu truly wanted him. Atiku is politically overrated. He’s not as smart as Tinubu. Atiku threw away his chances of ever becoming the president of Nigeria in 2015 when he supported Buhari against Jonathan as if he didn’t know that Jonathan had just one term to complete his tenure and return the seat to the North. How did Atiku expect to take over from a fellow Northerner after eight years? Besides, if he was politically smart, he should have obtained those documents from the American university concerning Tinubu even before Tinubu assumed the presidency than making a futile effort after Tinubu had become president.

-Ifeanyi, Owerri, 0806 156 2735

Casmir, Jonathan was supposed to complete Yar’Adua’s 1st term and hand power back to the North to complete their 2nd term via PDP. But, due to the lure of power, he extended his stay in office which provoked the North. It is this ‘lost term’ that the ‘PDP north’ is justifiably chasing. There is zoning within the party and there is zoning across party platforms. Zoning within PDP favours the North. Obi can’t win a presidential election. The north will not vote for him if Atiku is contesting; same way the S/East won’t vote for Atiku if Obi is contesting. Both are going to cancel each other out again in 2027 to the advantage of Tinubu! Obi doesn’t know how to capture power in Nigeria. Dolling out millions in charity won’t bring him votes of northerners. He will be paid back in his own coins for not supporting Atiku. He is a good man and a good business man; but not a good politician. He doesn’t understand power dynamics and power play in Nigerian politics, which is pitiful. He is playing the role of a spoiler in ‘this game’ of beating APC in 2027! PDP should put their house in order and stop blaming APC for their woes. If the wall is not open, the lizard cannot penetrate it. El-Rufai is a sore loser which serves him right. As a minister designate, he was rejected by some aggrieved Nigerians who petitioned the National Assembly during the screening exercise of the ministerial nominees. He was seen as a religious bigot. He is reaping the consequence of what he sowed. He deserves no empathy. What goes around, surely, comes around!

-Mike, Mushin, 0816 111 4572

Dear Casy, have you forgotten that what dots Nigeria’s political space these days are stomach infrastructure politicians? Those that run politics on the wings of ideologies and principles are like essential commodities and, therefore, very scarce. Even the one God gave us, Nigerians, on a platter, Peter Obi, in the ill-fated 2023 general elections, was he not choked by the unscrupulous politicians like the biblical seeds scattered among grasses? Casy, life has a way of paying a leader back for his actions, inactions or ill-actions while he was in power. As for El-Rufai, he is receiving retributive justice for the blood of innocent Southern Kaduna Christians that were wasted while he was in power as Governor. I advise Peter Obi to avoid dining with him in the name of political re-alignment or thread with utmost caution, lest he soils his hard-earned reputation.

-Steve Okoye, Awka, 08036630731