A good idea; but state creation ought to deliver more than it has
Seven of the 36 states in the country turned 50 on February 3. They were created by the then Head of State, General Murtala Ramat Muhammed, in 1976, barely 10 days to his assassination in a coup d’etat on February 13, 1976. The seven states created on that day were Bauchi, Benue, Borno, Imo, Niger, Ogun and Ondo. This raised the number of states in the country from 12 to 19.
Bauchi and Borno states were carved out of the defunct North-Eastern State; Benue State emerged from Benue-Plateau State; Niger State was created from the former North-Western State; Ogun and Ondo states were carved out of the old Western State, while Imo State emerged from the East Central State.
As ‘Daily Trust’ noted, “Exactly fifty years on, the seven states have expanded significantly in population, infrastructure and political relevance. Some of them have also been further subdivided in subsequent state-creation exercises, underscoring the continuing relevance of Murtala’s decentralisation logic.
“Gombe State was carved out of Bauchi in 1996; Yobe State emerged from Borno in 1991; Abia State was created from part of old Imo in 1991; Ekiti State was carved out of Ondo in 1996 while Benue, Niger and Ogun have remained territorially intact since 1976.”
Of course, more states had been created in the country after 1976. On September 23, 1987 Gen. Ibrahim Babangida created Akwa Ibom (from Cross River) and Katsina (from Kaduna), bringing the total number of states in the country to 21.
Again, on August 27, 1991, Babangida created nine more states: Abia, Adamawa, Delta, Edo, Enugu, Jigawa, Kebbi, Kogi, and Yobe; bringing the number to 30.
And, finally, on October 1, 1996, Gen. Sani Abacha created six states: Bayelsa, Ebonyi, Ekiti, Gombe, Nasarawa, and Zamfara. These brought the number of states in the country to the present 36; all created by military regimes as we have seen.
The main reasons Muhammed created the states in 1976 included: administrative convenience and development, i.e. to decentralise government, thereby making it easier to manage and ensuring that development reached rural areas.
Another reason was to allay the fears of the minorities by giving minority ethnic groups a stronger voice and reducing the dominance of the larger regions. It was also part of efforts to strengthen the federal structure, following the Nigerian Civil War.
Babangida and Abacha too didn’t have significantly different reasons for creating states when they did.
While the reasons were germaine, the snag was that most of the good aspects of the state creation were marred by the unitary system that was foisted on Nigerians by military rule, among other reasons, like corruption and misplacement of priorities on the part of some governors. Unitary system made it impossible for state governments to freely express and pursue their development choices because of certain laws that barred them from doing so. Here, we had the law barring state governments from establishing railway, and setting up their own power infrastructure, among others.
Mercifully, some of these ‘Walls of Jericho’ that had hobbled development in the country for decades are now being dismantled.
But, how many of these states are viable?Interestingly, despite their inability to take care of themselves, many Nigerians still continue to clamour for more states. We have at least 31 such requests cutting across the geographical zones, as at the last count.
This is ridiculous.
Until the advent of the Bola Tinubu administration that pumped more money into the coffers of the state governments, courtesy of fuel subsidy removal, many of the state governments could not pay the then minimum wage, not to talk of embark on serious developmental projects.
What is particularly disappointing is that even the current National Assembly could find the time and space to discuss such an issue as creation of states in spite of the myriad problems facing the country.
I know their main reason would be political expediency. But when would we be free from such bondage?
It was Jean-Jacques Rousseau in ‘The Social Contract’ (1762) who said that ,”men are born free and equal but everywhere they are in chains”. Why must we subject virtually everything to this bondage of political expediency? Which mother would put hot soup on a baby’s palm simply because that baby is crying for it?
I think it is high time we learnt to separate politics from policy. From our initial three regions (northern, western, and eastern) in 1960 to our present 36-state structure, the soldiers who took us here got it right when they said they did that because they wanted even development in the country. Ideally, state creation should lead to more development because it somewhat brings government and governance closer to the people.
But they missed it when they imposed unitary system on us. They should have left each region to blossom according to the capacity and dreams of their founding fathers. After all, there was nothing wrong with that arrangement. It was the politics that we didn’t get right; a thing that led to elections being rigged and the people losing confidence in the electoral process.
Unitary system has remained an albatross as it has retarded progress across board in the country. Each region had its strengths and these were being galvanised for regional development with each region paying rents and royalties to the central government before.
To that era we must return if we are really desirous of progress. This idea of some sections waiting for others kills initiative. It is a recipe for perpetual underdevelopment.
Many Nigerians want more states? True. Indeed, the state creation was not equitable as it favours some people more than others. I won’t name names. But then, beheading cannot be the solution to headache. If we want to correct that, let us first return to true federalism. I know that in Nigeria we talk of ‘true’ federalism. Well, if that will make us happy, let’s call it that — true federalism.
People cannot be clamouring for more states when resources from a section of the country are used to run the entire country.
The clamour for state creation would make sense when every state can fend for itself, not when everyone waits on Abuja which also waits on the returns from the Niger Delta to do a simple thing as pay salaries and develop the individual states.
I want to believe that the day when we federalise such that states fend for themselves would be the end of such clamour for new states. What we have been having over the years is a political class that has been weaned too much on over-reliance rather than self-reliance.
When it gets to that point where governors and their entire cabinet would have to put on their thinking caps to generate funds that they would spend to develop their states, then we would see a drastic reduction in the clamour for state creation.
Beyond that, the clamour for political offices too would reduce when political aspirants know that they are the ones that have to dream dreams that would generate the funds required to run their states.
So, seven states at 50? Should we congratulate them or not? Honestly, I don’t think we have much to celebrate if we juxtapose what has accrued to the states as revenue against the developmental projects in some, if not many of the states.
A child born 50 years ago would have become a grown-up man or woman today. But when you have that man or woman still using diapers and waiting on the parents to feed him or her, or make some other provisions for him or her, then there is a problem.
Although it may seem I am talking to or about only the seven states that just clocked 50; it is not so. I have only used them as metaphor. What applies to them applies to the other states as well.
As a matter of fact, it is worse for the older states that still cannot find their feet. Yes, we may say there was little or nothing they could have done to be self-reliant under military rule because of the unitary system of government that applied then. But it is now over 26 years since the country’s return to democracy. By now, we should be charting the path towards true federalism even if we are not operating it full throttle.
But the way things are, it doesn’t seem there is any serious attempt in that direction. Everyone seems comfortable with the present unsustainable system that provides for all, both the hardworking and the indolent.
And that is part of why the country has stunted growth. The competition that made the regions of old to thrive is no longer there. Easy and cheap money coming from the Niger Delta via Abuja, is a disincentive to anyone to work. Of course, why work if with or without work you will still get money to spend? Even the Holy Writ says a Christian without work is a corpse.
One of the reasons people steal state funds is because states are not generating their own funds. It is also because states are not generating what they spend that many Nigerians do not look in the direction of the state governments but rather concentrate on the centre. If their taxes form a significant part of their states’ internally-generated revenue, they would show more interest in how their sweat is spent.
I can only imagine how far this country would have gone if the military had not killed the regional arrangement under which each part of the country was developing at its own pace. That is one of the evils of military rule that our youths do not know and which makes them think military rule is the solution to the country’s problems. We have been there before and we didn’t get much from it. It is not their business to govern.
All said, while we may mark the 50 years of the creation of the seven states, it is only fit and proper to use the occasion to review the state of affairs in the states vis-a-vis where we ought to be by now. It is a good occasion for introspection.
As I pointed out earlier, it is heartwarming that some of the encumbrances that arrested development in the country are now being dismantled. Let us quickly bring them down to enable us return to true federalism and see if we won’t fly. We have crawled enough.
