7 January 2009
editorial
Lagos — The circus show would appear to have begun again. Agitations for creation of additional states, that have, for some time, been subtle and muffled, will definitely assume more fervour in the coming months as the National Assembly Joint Committee on Review of the Constitution begins its assignment.
Already, high-wired politicking that has perennially characterized the issue of state creation in the country, is visible in the horizon. Several groups of state creation agitators have been formed in readiness to confront the committee with their demands at the appropriate time.
State creation agitators always advance various reasons to back their demands. Such reasons include: the need to achieve a balanced federation with the correction of the imbalance between the North, with 19 states and the South with 17; the need to satisfy the interests of minority ethnic groups by giving them their own states; the need to take government nearer to the grassroots; the need to fast-track the delivery of democracy dividends; and the need to inject more efficiency into governmental business with the unbundling of the rather cumbersome and unwieldy administrative machinery of old state arrangements.
Some of these reasons indeed informed most previous state creation exercises from the 1963 excision of Mid-West Region from the old Western Region, through the 1967 creation of 12 states by Gen. Yakubu Gowon, to the 1976 creation of seven additional states, to the 1987 and 1995 exercises.
However, the creation of more states has not been able to address the nation's socio-political and economic imbalances and their outcomes have mostly failed to assuage the feelings of most agitators, as the very issues that originally instigated the demands for new states are mostly left unaddressed.
Even with the present 36 - state structure, some people still feel the country could still do with more states to, according to them, "achieve all-round development". But it is obvious at present that most of the existing states are mere drains on federal resources as, not being economically viable, they depend almost entirely on the federation accounts for their sustenance.
We have got to a stage whereby states should no longer be created for the fun of it or just to satisfy the fancies of some transient political office holders. At this time that the principle of true federalism is gaining political currency, indiscriminate multiplicity of unviable states could constitute a stumbling block towards achieving that ideal political arrangement. For, there is no way the fortunes of most of those states would not be tied to the apron strings of the central government.
Also, the popular argument that more states bring development closer to the people has failed as, apart from the superficial infrastructural development of the state capitals, creation of new states in many cases only succeeds in creating new local political leaders and nouveaux riche contractors. The problems of rural development and national imbalances are often relegated to the background or, at best scratched on the surface. And, in no time, this sparks off fresh agitation for state creation!
The solution to the nation's development problems and national integration challenges does not really lie in the creation of additional states but in renewed political will and honest commitment to service by our leaders. Indeed, the prospect for national unity and geographical equity depends on the emergence of a purposeful national leadership, whose members see themselves first as Nigerians rather than Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba, Junkun, Ijaw or Urhobo. It also depends on a proper political restructuring of the federation.
Members of the National Assembly Committee on the Review of the Constitution should not get entangled in the web of the agitation for state creation.
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