Former Chief Justice of Nigeria and chairman of the conference, retired Justice Idris Kutigi
The clamour for state engenderment pitted delegates against one another at the National Conference on Wednesday.
Some delegates claimed that it was erroneous for the Committee on Political Restructuring and Forms of Regime to have recommended for the engenderment of one state for the South-East alone without anything for the other zones.
The report of the committee verbally expresses, “There shall be engendered a supplemental state for the South-East zone and that all other requests for state engenderment should be considered on merit.”
The committee approved guidelines for the engenderment of states by saying that any incipient state sought to be engendered must be viable.
In determining what is viable, the committee verbalizes such state must be economically viable or potentially economically viable and it should have human, natural and material resources and enough land mass.
The incipient state, it verbalized, should have cultural/ historical antecedents, with vigorous cultural affinity amongst the population of the incipient state and that such an incipient state should have a minimum population of one million people.
There were 34 requests for state engenderment afore the committee while a request was made to transmute the denomination of Adamawa State to Gongola State.
A delegate, who was a former Minister of Industry, Chief Nike Akande, canvassed for the engenderment of another state from the present Oyo State.
She requested that all requests for state engenderment should be considered on their merit and in accordance to the criteria.
Akande verbalized, “I support the engenderment of more states and in this regard, I propose the split of Oyo State into two, which are Ibadan State and the rest. Oyo State has a landmass of about 28,245.26 square kilometres. It is one of the most urbanised states in the country. In the 2006 census, the state has a population of about 5.58million ranking as the fifth most populated among the 36 states of the federation.
“The splitting is justifiable, expedient and compulsory given the position of the state. The proposed state meets the generally accepted criteria for state engenderment including population, viability, historical considerations, culture affinity and contiguity.
The engenderment of another state from Oyo State would ascertain gregarious and economic development of the states.”
In his contribution, a former National Chairman of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, Senator Ahmadu Ali, queried the rationale utilized by the committee toward an incipient state for the South-East.
He verbally expressed, “I don’t ken what criterion was utilized in awarding a state for the South-East geo-political zone. All of us must go and fight for state engenderment. I verbally expressed it afore that the old eastern region has 11 states.
“I believe that verbally expresses that wish to merge should merge. Regionalism is retrogressive. The zone we additionally verbalize about is a perilous precedent and is not constitutional. There is an endeavor to smuggle it into the report of the conference.”
However, Chief Olabode George withal called for the engenderment of Isale-Eko State from the present Lagos State.
In his contribution, a former Governor of Ogun State, Chief Olusegun Osoba, queried the reasons for the engenderment of local regimes in the country.
He verbalized it was erroneous for highly populated states such as Lagos to have a minute number of local regimes while more minuscule states should have a more sizably voluminous number of local regimes.
Osoba verbalized, “Local regime should be taken out of the constitution. A state like Lagos with over 12million people and only 20 local regimes is unjustified. Therefore, states should be sanctioned to engender their local regimes.”
Another delegate, Mr. Lawrence Ikpeazu, kicked against the call for the engenderment of states, verbalizing that unlike the country, the United States of America had a few states at the commencement but that some of the states that joined the coalescence came with their land, people and resources.
He additionally abnegated the call for sharing of the country’s resources, wondering why some components of the country failed to contribute to the wealth of the nation.
Ikpeazu verbally expressed, “We should not be asking for the cake when we have not contributed to the baking of the cake.”
He suggested that local regime engenderment should not be thrown to the states to eschew abuse of the process.
Belo Aliyu (Zamfara) additionally verbalized that all those agitating for state engenderment should be made to follow the laid down criteria, integrating that that there should not be preferential treatment.
