The Need For Additional State In The South-East

As it becomes increasingly evident that the National Assembly may soon embark on constitutional amendment to accommodate the creation of additional states in Nigeria, among other issues, virtually all the geo-political zones of the country, even the region with seven states, have resumed agitations for more states in their respective regions. But opinionists insist that, for the purpose of balance, equity and fairness, what is imperative now is the creation of one more state in the South-East

Odinaka ANUDU and Chuks OLUIGBO

“From the equality of rights springs identity of our highest interests; you cannot subvert your neighbour’s rights without striking a dangerous blow at your own.” These immutable words of Abraham Lincoln, the 16^th President of the United States of America and hero of slave trade abolition, have formed the bedrock upon which agitations in Nigeria are based. In recent times, there have been contusions on the flesh of Nigeria’s unity due to violent and non-violent agitations over issues ranging from ethnicity to religion, equality to fairness, wages to welfarism, and to environmental degradations, etc. However, no other issue seems to have bogged the minds of the people of the South-East so far than the most fundamental of all, which is, in its strictest sense, fairness.

Ever since the end of the Nigeria/Biafra Civil War in 1970, the people of South-East Nigeria, otherwise called Ndigbo, have been pointing fingers at the treatment meted to them by the Nigerian state. Among all the deductive and inductive arguments woven together to justify their stance on many areas they feel they are short-changed, none has been as vicious as the logic of inequity in the number of states in the various geo-political zones that make up Nigeria.

For record purposes, let us briefly take a look at the history of state creation in Nigeria. In the early years of colonial rule in Nigeria, the area that makes up the present Nigeria were administered as two separate entities – the Northern and Southern Protectorates. That arrangement, which was done mainly for administrative convenience and to drive the colonial agenda of ‘divide and rule’, was carried out by sheer colonial fiat, devoid of any input by the ‘natives’. In 1914, the two protectorates were formally united as the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria.

Thereafter, Nigeria was split into three large regions – East, West and North. That split was done based on the tripod theory – that Nigeria consisted of three major ethnic nationalities (Igbo, Yoruba and Hausa/Fulani) – with the belief that the minorities of the Delta, West and North would naturally find a place in the new arrangement.

In the post-independence era, the Midwest region was carved out of the existing Western region. That move was largely driven by the then dominant National Council of Nigerian Citizens, NCNC, which was desirous of containing the Action Group, AG, through the creation of a region out of the Western region.

But the first real state creation exercise in Nigeria was done in 1967 by General Yakubu Gowon, the then military Head of State. Despite his own arguments, it was evident that it was an attempt to weaken the then Eastern Region which threatened secession, as well as their allies in the Midwest. That effort left Nigeria with a 12-state structure, with 6 states apiece in the North and South.

General Murtala Mohammed, who gave Nigeria additional 7 states, argued that the exercise was meant to correct the imbalances and inequities of the harried creation done by Gowon and also to break up the regional power hegemons. Babangida and Abacha respectively, succumbing to political expediency, created additional states, bringing the total number of states in Nigeria to the present 36. In all this, the South-East always found itself locked out and cheated.

As it is, the Nigerian state today is made up of six geo-political zones. The North-Central region includes the six states of Benue, Kogi, Kwara, Nasarawa, Niger and Plateau. It is also home to the political seat of Nigeria, the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The North-East encompasses the six states of Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Taraba and Yobe. The North-West is home to Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto and Zamfara.

In the same vein, the South-South is populated by the oil producing states of Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Edo and Rivers. The South-West shelters the six states of Ekiti, Lagos, Ogun, Ondo, Osun and Oyo. The South-East, which is the subject of this discourse, is made up of the five states of Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo. From the above, it is very evident that, except the North-West which has seven states, other regions of Nigeria have six states each, leaving the South-East behind with only five states.

The agitations by South-Easterners for the creation of an additional state in most recent times dates back to 1997, immediately after the then late Sani Abacha carved out the present Ebonyi State from Enugu and Abia States. On the 36^th Independence anniversary of Nigeria, the late maximum dictator had announced to the excitement of many Nigerians that Ebonyi, Bayelsa, Nasarawa, Zamfara, Gombe and Ekiti States would be added to the list of other states in Nigeria. This singular move helped to calm frayed nerves in various regions, including the South-East. But rather than achieve the primary objective for which this state creation was meant to serve, it ended up exposing the imbalances and inequity in the state of affairs. This is because, according to analysts, the move created balance in other regions but left a visible lacuna in the South-East.

Speaking on the matter, a member of the House of Representatives representing Ezza North/Ishielu Federal Constituency of Ebonyi State, Engr. Peter Edeh, emphasised the need for the creation of another state in the South-East zone so as to redress the current imbalance in the nation’s geo-political structure. He said: “Basically, I want us to take the issue of state creation seriously because that is one area where my own section of the country feels marginalised. All zones of the country have up to six states and even one zone has seven. It is only my zone, which is the South-East that has five. My view is that the imbalance be redressed”. Many other prominent voices in the region have also risen to speak in favour of an additional state in the South-East.

According to informed opinions, the apparent imbalance in the number of states has made the region play second fiddle in the scheme of things.  In the first place, analysts feel that Nigeria is largely a country where political representation in the National Assembly, appointments  in the federal civil service, the military, the police  as well as revenue sharing or allocation are done essentially on the basis of the numerical strengths of  states and local governments in each region.

For the avoidance of doubt, let us as look at the following scenario. In the Upper Chambers of the National Assembly, for instance, the North-West with seven states elects twenty-one senators, going by the constitutional stipulation of electing three senators for each state; the other four regions with six states each has eighteen senators; while the South-East, with only five states, is merely entitled to fifteen senators. In the House of Representatives, the South-East elects just forty-two members from the region as their representatives, whereas the North-West elects ninety-three members to the same Lower Chambers.

It is also striking to underscore that while the entire South-East has about ninety-five local government areas, the South-West and the South-South have one hundred and thirty-seven and one hundred and twenty-two local government areas respectively. The North-West has one hundred and eighty-six while the North-East and the North-Central zones have about one hundred and twenty-one local government areas each.

More striking is the impregnable fact that Kano alone has about forty-four local government areas. Furthermore, Jigawa, which was created out of Kano State on August 27, 1991 and whose population is comparable to that of Anambra State alone, has about thirty-seven council areas. The glaring implication of this imbalance is that the old Kano State, made up of the current Kano and Jigawa states, has eighty-one local government areas, whereas the entire South-East region, made up of five states put together, has ninety-five, just fourteen local government areas ahead of the old Kano State.

It is incontrovertible that the low numerical strength of representatives of the South-East to the National Assembly has a lot of negative bearing on the region. Without fear of contradiction, the number of representatives of the region in the Red and Green Chambers has more or less weakened the political weight and stance of the members on burning national and sectional issues and has, to a greater extent, reduced them to mere ‘o yes members’. Hence, pundits are quick to point out that in many instances, the inability of the legislators of the zone to draw the attention of the National Assembly to the many woes of the region stems fundamentally from their low numerical strength. In other words, the argument is that the myriad of issues and problems affecting the region have attracted less attention to the National Assembly, and by extension, the Federal Government, basically because they only make up about twelve percent of the legislature and can hardly throw much weight on issues affecting the region. Even when they have to lure some members of other regions into rallying behind them on issues affecting their region, they either end up being given cold shoulders or viewed as being parochial, for mere political reasons. Though some may be quick to dismiss this with a wave of the hand, a close consideration of issues raised below may equally leave them transfixed.

Consider the many woes of the South-East. The South-East is indubitably bedevilled by gully erosions which have sent many to their early graves and rendered millions homeless. This issue has been raised for many decades now, yet no meaningful response has been received from the Federal Government. Even when the entire South-East governors converged in Enugu in 2009 and unanimously prodded the Federal Government to declare the region a disaster zone, nothing tangible has been done in this respect two years after.

Secondly, the South-East has the worst road network among all other regions. Striking enough is the fact that many of these roads are federal roads. Consider Onitsha-Owerri road, which lasted for decades before it could receive full attention. Even now that it has received attention, work there is unduly stagnated for only-God-knows-what reasons. The Enugu-Onitsha Expressway has become a nightmare to travellers. It took the hues and cries of some well-meaning sons and daughters of the region before the contract was awarded. Even when it was awarded, the contracting firm, Messr CCC, abandoned it half way with a grouse that it was not properly mobilized. Though it was recently reported that the contract has been re-awarded, nothing visible has yet been seen.

These and numerous other problems have docked the region in recent times. These issues have not in the least escaped the minds of representatives of the region in the National Assembly. Many a time, legislators, starting from Senator Uche Chukwumerije, Senator Chris Anyanwu to Hon Gozie Agbakoba, have spoken out on these issues, yet nothing meaningful, other than legislative orders, was done to persuade the Executive arm to effect any change.    

Equally alarming is the loss the South-East region has incurred from the imbalance. In a recent interview, Chief Annie Okonkwo, former Senator representing Anambra Central senatorial zone, revealed that the South-East has lost money running into trillions of naira from not having up to six states. Hear him: “I pour my heart and energy into the structural marginalization of Ndigbo with their only five states in the six geopolitical zones in the country. The collateral loss to our people for this as at today (April 13, 2011) is conservatively above 1.7 trillion naira since the last state creation exercise.”

Also, Rt. Hon. Eugene Odoh, Speaker of the Enugu State House of Assembly and chairman of the Forum of Speakers of the five South-East states Houses of Assembly, said the zone had lost a whooping N80 trillion in the sharing of allocations from the federation account over the years as a result of the shortfall in the number of the states in the zone.

However, statisticians in the region who have worked out the revenue that would have accrued to one additional state in the region put the figure at nothing less than N3 trillion. Whatever the actual figure is, what is important is that what the states in the region could have earned and what could have been converted into developmental projects has either been lost to other regions or to the Federal Government.

Most amazing is the fact that this injustice is not addressed in the revenue allocations to the region. Okey Ilomuanya, a native of Abia State, wonders why the revenue accruing to South-East states such as Anambra, Ebonyi and Enugu are far less than what is obtainable in states in other regions. His argument centres on the fact that since the South-East has five states, rather than six or seven, the Revenue Allocation, Mobilization and Fiscal Commission, through the Act of Parliament, should have, in the spirit of parity, equity and justice, been allocating more revenue to the states in the region, without consideration to derivation, population and other yardsticks. This view is equally held in many quarters in the region with the argument that it is commonsensical that a region like the South-East, which has suffered utter neglect due to revenue losses and infinitesimal allocations for the past two decades, should have had more allocations to compensate for one additional state that could have been created.

Another incontrovertible logic adduced by pundits in the region is that South-East Nigeria does not deserve being dismissed with a wave of the hand or treated with levity due to enormous contributions it has made to the Nigerian state. Many who spoke to this magazine wondered why the region which produced Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, a man who toiled to bring Independence to Nigeria and stood his ground on oneness of Nigeria, should have five states while other zones have six or seven.

Again, the people of the region strongly believe that they are primus inter pares in commerce and industry. They cite visible instances of situations where the people of the region have gone to remote and undeveloped states in the country and raised the level of development there to an unimaginable height. To them, states like Lagos, Kano, Kaduna, Cross River, Akwa Ibom, Adamawa, etc, are beneficiaries of the people’s business activities. These states have risen to national and international prominence due to the influx and presence of Ndigbo who are known for traversing the nooks and crannies of the country in search of daily bread. Logically, a people who have given so much to the Nigerian state deserve more than six states.

Drawing from the logic of population, it has been argued so many times that the population of the South-East is the least of all the regions, and thus places it at a disadvantaged position. But this, from our findings, is debatable and controversial. The view of elders in the region is that the 2006 Population Census is not by any measure a true reflection of the population of the people of the zone. Figures from the National Bureau of Statistics put the total population of the zone a little above 16 million. This implies that the population of Lagos and Kano, which are a little above 18 million put together, far outweigh that of the region. While it is unconventional to dispute facts from the National Bureau of Statistics, it is trite to point out that issues ranging from disturbances from the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra, MASSOB, and volatility of the security network at that time in the region prevented many from being counted.

It was reliably gathered that due to incessant arrests, torture and murder of members of MASSOB at that time, angry and disgruntled youths carried out campaigns of calumny against the Federal Government by asking families not to allow themselves to be counted, chasing away enumerators in some areas and threatening families that accepted to be counted.

Furthermore, if population is a yardstick for creation of an additional state, the people of the South-East region feel strongly that they constitute up to fifty percent of the populations of those states that are said to have high populations, like Lagos, Kano and Kaduna. According to Olisa Ibeneme, who plies his trade at Nasarawa local government area of Kano State, “The South-East people have higher population in almost all the local governments in Kano, especially in Ungogo, Kunchi, Kano Municipal, Kura, etc”.

Findings also show that the population of South-Easterners in Lagos State is overwhelming. From Agege to Ikeja, Mushin to Epe, Surulere to Shomolu, Apapa to Badagry, Ndigbo rove the streets in droves. Furthermore, Sabon-Gari, Birni-Gwari, Giwa, Igabi, Zaria, all in Kaduna State, bear eloquent witnesses to the heavy presence of South-Easterners. So, if these people were not in their states of origin when the census exercise was done, it logically means that they would have made up a population of two other zones put together if they had been asked to go back to their states for the exercise. This is why they feel short-changed for having five states.

Fortunately, this issue has not escaped the minds of the legislators and constitutional giants. Before the introduction of the 1999 Constitution, many in the zone felt that the greatest task of the body responsible for constitutional review was to address this anomaly of inequality of states. But this was not to be. Not until Chief Olusegun Obasanjo assembled prominent people from various regions and interest groups in Abuja for what he termed National Political Reform Conference. Fortunately too, the issue of state creation was not among “no go areas”. The Conference had, among other things, recommended that a sixth state be created for the South-East geo-political zone to equate the number of states within the six geo-political zones in Nigeria. However, nothing was done to follow up the recommendation.

Another opportunity presented itself in 2007 when the National Assembly began its constitutional amendment. It was the peripheral objective of the legislators to correct some of the glaring flaws and inconsistencies in the 1999 Constitution by presenting a truly Nigerian Constitution that would serve the interest of all sections, ethnic groups and regions. As this magazine gathered, this mission was truncated by the self-serving Third Term Agenda of Chief Obasanjo, an aspect of the amendment which botched the South-East’s opportunity to have another state as well as that of solving some of Nigeria’s multifarious problems.

The issue of creation of additional states also cropped up in the Sixth Assembly when the members agreed to amend the Constitution. This prompted many leaders of the South-Eastern region to jostle for prominence and advance names of their new state. Names that came up included Adada, Njaba, Wawa, Aba, Orlu, Orashi, Igboezue, Umuofia, and so on. This was largely predicated on the words of the then Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Usman Nafada, who promised that additional eight states would be created in the country.

But there are people in other regions who seem to be opposed to the move of an additional state in the South-East. For instance, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, self-acclaimed military president of Nigeria, publicly asserted in an interview on his 70^th birthday that the issue of state creation is settled. He was quoted as saying that “State creation is one of the matters that I think is settled. I feel that right now we do not need to create more states. Everybody has a state with each state running its own systems within the democratic framework. What we need is more peace in the states.”

Just recently too, the state-owned Delta Broadcasting Service, DBS, reported Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan as saying that Nigeria does not need more states as it needs to address daunting challenges that are bedevilling it first.

Reacting to this, the helmsman of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Ambassador Ralph Uwechue, said that if IBB was quoted correctly, then he was wrong. According to him, “States we have today were not created out of choice but by the imposition of former military rulers.”

Also, Roy Nkwocha, writer and lecturer, said that Babangida’s words smacked of inconsistency since creation of more states has not been identified as the cause of crises in states. Rather, inability to address such imbalance has created more ripples and tension than peace in states. In his words, “Babangida has lost his relevance and his words do not matter to us again.”

Also disagreeing with Babangida, a leader of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Bonaventure Maduafokwa, in an interview with a national daily in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State, said that for equity in the nation’s political landscape, the South-East deserves at least one more state. He said: “It is pertinent to underscore the point that an additional state in the South-East would ensure equality of states in the six geo-political zones to guarantee fairness and equity.”

Lamenting the loss that the South-East has suffered as a result of this imbalance, Maduafokwa said: “We have suffered great economic and political disadvantage by being the only geo-political zone with the least number of states. Think about the three senatorial seats and nine House of Representatives’ constituencies that would have accrued if we had six states in the zone, then factor in the quantum of development that local councils would have garnered all these years, you would understand what I am saying”.

In spite of all the arguments, there seems to be light at the end of the dark tunnel for the region as the Senate President, David Mark, on many occasions, especially in recent times, has promised that the National Assembly would put the state creation issue into considering as it embark on constitutional amendment. While receiving a delegation of Orimili State Creation Movement from the present Anambra State led by the Obi of Onitsha, Igwe Nnaemeka Achebe, recently, Mark made the point that even though the process of creation of state is tedious and painstaking, the demand and possible creation of new states is not foreclosed. He further said that the constitutional bottlenecks towards state creation can be overcome and that the National Assembly has made genuine efforts to create more states as demanded by some Nigerians, stressing that he believes that there is the need for creation of more so as to bring governance closer to the people.

Also, while speaking at a grand reception organized in his honour by his kinsmen in Otukpo, Benue State, Senator Mark said that the 7th National Assembly would commit itself to further review and amendments of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) to accommodate the creation of more states and local governments as well as some other issues. “I am committed to it and believe that the creation of additional states will be in the interest of our people because development will be nearer to them,” he said.

These are cheering words for the South-East. But as the present National Assembly goes into Constitutional amendment in next to no time, the desire of the region is to see some seriousness, rather than levity, in the handling of the issue.

It is also evident that there are agitations from other regions of the country, including the Northwest that already has seven. These include Ibadan, Oke Ogun and New Oyo from Oyo State, Ijebu-Remo from Ogun, Apa from Benue, Okun and Confluence from Kogi, Edu from Kwara, Kogi and Niger, Borgu from Niger, Oluwa from Lagos, Oduduwa and Ijesa from Osun, Ogoja from Cross River, Urhobo from Delta, Toru-Ebe from Delta, Edo and Ondo, Southern Kaduna from Kaduna, etc. No doubt, they cannot be denied the right to clamour for additional states.

But even as these other zones continue to clamour, the point must be made clearly, without equivocation, that what is imperative now, for the purpose of achieving equity and fairness within the Nigerian polity and making the South-East region feel a sense of belonging and thus lessen unwarranted agitations bordering on marginalization that have characterized the zone in recent times, is first of all the creation of one more state in the South-East to bring it at par with the other regions of Nigeria. Thereafter, future state creation exercise, if such becomes necessary, must take into cognisance balance among the six geo-political zones to ensure that no one zone feels cheated out or marginalised. As they say, justice must not only be done but must be seen to have been done.