Senator Onyekachi Nwaebonyi is the Chairman, Senate Committee on Review of the Constitution (South-East). In this interview monitored on Arise Television by EVINCE UHUREBOR, he speaks on demand for creation of new states as it affects the zone and other issues
You are the chairman of the Senate Committee on the Review of the Constitution, South-East Zone and we have the spokesperson of the Senate, Yemi Adaramodu, saying we should forget about creation of new states. What’s your take on the state creation? I will agree with him to some extent.
But before I go into that, I want us to look at the procedures that we must follow when there is agitation for creation of additional states in Nigeria. Section 8 (subsection 1b, c and d), expressly lay down procedures to be followed when we want to create more states in the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Section 8 (subsection 1a), is of the view that it has to originate through a request for state creation.
This request must be backed up by two-third majority of the representative of the people seeking to be made a state; meaning that the representative of the people at the Senate, the House of Representatives, the House of Assembly and the local government councils within the areas that are agitating to be made a state, will support that request in writing, and it will be forwarded to the National Assembly.
That is the 61 bills my colleague is talking about. Now, section 8 (subsection 1b,) made it mandatory that the National Assembly will cause a referendum to be conducted within that area that is agitating to be created as an independent state.
And the constitutional requirement is that 66 per cent of the entire population of the people seeking to be made a state must give approval to that request. Now, the National Assembly, having gotten that referendum in affirmation, will now cause that bill to be sent to the 36 states House of Assembly, which will in turn do justice to it in line with section 8 (subsection 1c) of the constitution that requires a simple majority of the 36 states of the federation.
It is when the simple majority of the 36 states gives a nod that the state should be created, that the bill it will now be sent back to the National Assembly, in line with section 8 (subsection 1d) of the constitution, which provides that the two houses in the National Assembly, being the Senate and the House of Representatives, will give a nod to this request for state creation by two-thirds majority of the entire elected members. After that, it can now be transmitted to the president for assent.
That is when a state can be created. So, having seen the provisions of the constitution as enumerated in section 8 (subsection 1a to d), you can see that is a fact that is speaking for itself. And the 10th National Assembly, under the leadership of Senator Godswill Akpabio, going by the agitations of Nigerians, and in line with these constitutional provisions, constituted a committee chaired by the Deputy Senate President to man these processes of our constitutional review and the most celebrated bill in this constitutional review is request for creation of more states.
Yes, we may have over 60 bills requesting for state creation in Nigeria, but what I want all Nigerians to know is that if one state should be created in Nigeria, it must be from the South-East to address zonal imbalance.
If I’m not mistaken, the demand that has really gained momentum so far is the proposed Anioma State but there is argument over whether Anioma, when created, will belong to the South-East or SouthSouth even as the people claimed that they were given the opportunity to present their case during the public hearing. Number two; shouldn’t we be focusing on, maybe, expanding our local governments as opposed to all this talk about state creation?
Let me start by correcting an impression that those who came to present their request were not given the opportunity to so do. That may not be before the Senate Committee Zonal Hearing, because the hearing that I chaired accommodated every interest and request, including that of Anioma, even when ideally, they’re supposed to come under South-South because Delta State is under South-South. We believe that the people of Anioma are Igbos if you look at their history and their cultural practices. Even their language will tell you that they are our brothers.
However, outside a request for creation of Anioma State, we also have requests for creation of Adada State, which, if you go for a referendum today in the South-East, will have the way considering their population and resources. Outside even Adada, we also have request for Aba State.
We also have request for Anim State from the people of Imo as well as part of Anambra and Rivers states. All these requests were forwarded and they were all taken, and the people were also given the opportunity to buttress their points. So, it is wrong to say that they were not given opportunity to ventilate their agitations. However, on the issue of a local governments, like I submitted in the course
If more states are created and they are charged to cater for their people, and qualified people are elected to man those states, they will make something out of nothing, even if such states don’t have any crude oil
of my submission recently, I said that it is even time we remove local governments as third tier of government in Nigeria, because if we continue to do that, the problem of imbalance in the number of local governments among the states and geopolitical zones will continue to draw us backwards.
So, I am of the view that as we amend the 1999 Constitution, we should completely remove local governments from the constitution and leave them under the states. Let states have power to create as many local governments as they want, in as much as they can fund them and make them extend democracy dividends to the people in the grassroots, which is the rationale behind the creation of local government.
I say so because if you go to a state like Kano, it has over 40 local government areas, whereas Bayelsa has only eight local government areas and Ebonyi has only 13. So, the simplest way to handle the issue of local governments and revive them is to subject them to states’ control.
When you were talking about Anioma being part of the Igbo people, the question is: What about a state like Kwara that has a large Yoruba speaking community but seen as part of the North, and what is the economic viability of these proposed new states?
Let me start with your question as it relates to Anioma. We are not saying that we have a result for Anioma State. I’m saying that is one of the requests that were brought to us, and we couldn’t throw it away because these people are our brothers.
I think that they are wise to make the presentation before the South-East and SouthSouth, so that all hands will be on deck to make sure that they are recognised as a state. And when you listen to their peculiar grounds for this demand, you actually feel for them, considering what their people passed through during the Biafran War.
However, as people of South-East, I’ve enumerated the number of requests we got, which mainly is the Adada State that comprises people of Enugu as well as parts of Ebonyi and Benue. We also have requests for Anim State and Aba states. So even outside Anioma, we have other three from the South-East.
And like one leader from the North, in particular from Kano, said, the South-East deserves even two states, not just one state, considering our number, considering what we do, considering our belief in one Nigeria. So, I believe that in view of these, we should be giving this additional one state. Now, as to the viability of these states, let me tell you, the problem we have in Nigeria is this type of federalism that we practice.
It has made our states very dull and inactive in terms of economic activities, because at the end of the month, they will come to Abuja and get money federation account. That is why Nigerians are saying no we should go into true federalism, wherein all the resources domiciled in each state should be allowed to be manned by those states, and taxes and royalties paid to the government at the centre. That is what is obtainable in organised societies, and that is what we are talking about.
So, I believe that if more states are created and they are charged to cater for their people, and qualified people are elected to man those states, they will make something out of nothing, even if such states don’t have any crude oil. There is no state in Nigeria that doesn’t have one natural resource or the other. In Ebonyi State, for example, we don’t have oil, but we have solid minerals. We are also blessed with fertile land.
Don’t you think Nigeria will create more problems; financial, economic and political by even toying with the idea of creating more states and where will the funding come from for these states?
The funding shouldn’t be a problem because the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) as it stands today are being funded properly. And these states are not going to be created from the moon.
They are going to be created from the existing states. So, it goes without saying that the funding will naturally come from the existing sharing formula of the national cake.
What I’m trying to say is that most of these areas that are agitating, to be made a state, like Adada State, for example, which encompasses the Nsukka section of Enugu, part of Benue and part of Ebonyi, when you go there, you will see infrastructure that can kickstart as a capital of that state.
Nsukka can comfortably serve as capital city of a state. And when you look at the land there, very fertile land, so what is required is a leader, who will let the people understand that their destiny has been put in their hands, and that they must till the ground to survive. That is what is required. As for the political will, which you are hammering on, I must tell you that nothing is impossible.
If you look at the provisions of the constitution as I enumerated, you will see that the process is in the hands of the people. The only person that we need his assent is the president. The rest is on the people. Remember how it originated. The people will bring in a request, and it will be thrown back to them.
𝗙𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘄 𝗢𝘂𝗿 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁𝘀𝗔𝗽𝗽 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗹 𝗧𝗼 𝗚𝗲𝘁 𝗟𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 𝗔𝘀 𝗜𝘁'𝘀 𝗗𝗿𝗼𝗽!
