The Nation Newspaper

Tag: States

  • Call for more states gathers steam

    Call for more states gathers steam

    Agitators for more states are working round the clock to ensure that their demands receive favourable consideration by the National Assembly. Senate President David Mark is under pressure from the Idoma to deliver on Apa State. His deputy, Ike Ekweremadu, who presides over the Constitution amendment process, has been given a pan Igbo mandate to ensure the creation of an additional state for the Southeast. Assistant Editor DADA ALADELOKUN reports the intrigues attending the process.

    To those who have remained implacable in their agitation for the creation of Ijebu State out of the present Ogun State, Senate President David Mark made their day last weekend.

    It was at this year’s Ojude-Oba Festival that held at the ancient town of Ijebu-Ode. Ovation rose to high heavens when the Senate President told the mammoth crowd what they had apparently longed to hear, expressing support for agitation for the creation of Ijebu State, among others. He minced no word in assuring that the National Assembly would create additional states in due course.

    Noting that new states would address the issue of marginalisation that is currently torturing minds in many parts of the country today, Mark added: “Creation of additional states can only make government closer to the people, contrary to the view in certain quarters that we do not need additional states in the federation.”

    Mark’s assurance came in obvious response to the quest of the Awujale of Ijebuland, Oba Sikiru Adetona who, in his welcome address, had beseeched the National Assembly to address the alleged injustice against his kinsmen by ensuring the creation of Ijebu State.

    To drive home his request, the monarch had argued: “We have been on this issue of creation of Ijebu State since 1975. The justification for it is abundantly clear. The most worrisome aspect of it was the total neglect of Ijebu community in the state creation exercises that have taken place.

    “It is lamentable that Ijebu, which in the colonial era was one of the 24 provinces that made up Nigeria, cannot today boast being counted as one of the 36 states that presently constitute the country.”

    It perhaps goes without saying that the prolonged outcry over demand for additional states is a splitting headache for the Joint Committee on Constitution Review (JCCR) with the membership of Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Usman Nafada, and 13 others.

    Not long ago, Ekweremadu disclosed that the committee had been importuned with demand for no fewer than 45 more states from across the country.

    The vexed issue of states creation has remained prominent in virtually every national political discourse since the so-called need to address some perceived imbalance in the nation came into people’s consciousness.

    Human rights activist and legal practitioner of note, Festus Okoye, again, raised the thought-provoking issue at a media dialogue on the constitution amendment process last Tuesday in Lagos.

    The growing requests for additional states in the country, coupled with the way the Senate Constitution Review Committee (SCRC) was going about as though it could single-handedly midwife new states with their votes, must have caused Okoye exasperating angst.

    He had therefore come forth with a poser: “Are there new issues in the constitutional amendment apart from those set out in Section 8 of the 1999 Constitution?” Just what are new constitutional amendment issues?”

    Section 8 sets out the procedures that must be followed by those seeking additional states in their areas.

    The lawyer wondered whether the Committee had problems with those procedures and wants an amendment of such. Perhaps that is why it appears intoxicated with the issue of creating additional states.

    Both the Ekweremadu-led SCRC and the counterpart committee in the House of Representatives headed by Deputy Speaker Emeka Ihedioha once listed creation of additional states as one of the thematic issues. In fact, Ekweremadu it was, who once disclosed that out of the 231 memoranda that the Senate Committee had received, 56 bordered on creation of additional states.

    Premised on the provisions of Section 8 as regards the procedures to be followed in creating new states, many are of the opinion apostles of creation of new states are exercising their fundamental right of drawing attention to their heart desires in the belief that there would be enough national consensus to have it actualised.

    Indeed, Okoye is among them. He argued that to create additional states, there must be sufficient national consensus on the request, otherwise promoters of such ambition might be deemed to be shadow chasers.

    To Okoye and his like, a matter of state creation, according to Section 8 of the constitution, must proceed from the majority of the members representing the area demanding the new state in the Senate, House of Representatives, the House of Assembly and local councils in respect of the area. To them, it is after this that other states of the federation and the National Assembly will decide on the demand.

    Promoters of the new states are always quick to argue that only the military have created states in Nigeria’s history (with fiat, they created the present 36 states). To them, none has been added under any civilian dispensation.

    They are also quick to note that creating more states would, aside from ensuring a balance in the nation’s structure, complement councils’ efforts at bringing governance closer to the grassroots people.

    Sooner than later, proponents of the issue may have cause to smile. Not long ago, the Senate held a retreat at Asaba, Delta State; the issue enjoyed a pride of place in the lawmakers’ talk. So it was in Calabar, Cross River State capital, where a similar retreat was held by members of the House of Representatives.

    As reliably gathered, plans are afoot to create six additional states at last.

    As things stand, the composition of the zones is as follows: North East (Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Taraba, Yobe); North West (Kaduna, Katsina, Kano, Kebbi, Sokoto, Jigawa, Zamfara); North Central (Benue, Kogi, Kwara, Nasarawa, Niger, Plateau) & FCT not a state; South East (Anambra, Enugu, Imo, Abia, Ebonyi); South West (Lagos, Ekiti, Oyo, Osun, Ondo, Ogun), and South-South (Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Edo, Delta, Rivers, Bayelsa).

    Now, the plan is aimed at ensuring that all the zones have seven states each, just like the Northeast that already has seven. But will it go down well with some of the zones that boast superior numerical strength? That may remain another hard nut for the authorities to crack when their efforts finally crystalise.

     

     

  • Mark and creation of more states

    Mark and creation of more states

    Senate President David Mark has announced his readiness to join hands with those campaigning for the creation of additional states in Nigeria. He reiterated his view on the subject at the Ojude-Oba annual cultural festival of the Ijebu people where he was a special guest on Sunday. There he argued that, contrary to what many thought, the demand for more states had nothing to do with separatist or isolationist tendencies of Nigerians. The desire for more states, he added, was simply a device to move governance closer to the people. As he put it: “I support the creation of (more) states in this country. And the National Assembly must work towards that. When we create states, it is not because we cannot live together, but because we want to bring governance closer to the people. A lot of people desire and deserve to feel a sense of governance in this country, and when we create states, that is what would happen.” If he offered any other rationalisation for the exercise, the media did not report it.

    In his remarks, Senator Mark also indicated that the National Assembly was in support of additional states, and was already working on the matter. If he had any other reason for the creation of more states, the Ijebu-Ode festival was most suitable for him to educate the people. His hosts asked for Ijebu State, to which Mark was well disposed, but his rationalisation for more states was rightly a general one. However, his statement was more notable for the questions it did not answer than the questions it answered. Governance needed to be moved closer to the people, Mark admitted, but at what point would such a movement become unrealistic and indefensibly atomistic? When would creation of states reach its equilibrium point and anything outside that become unreasonable and impracticable? In fact, as far as practicality goes, why would an 18-state structure be better, not more burdensome, than a 12-state structure, or a 36-state structure bring government closer to the people than a 21-state structure?

    Judging from past experiences, the agitation for the creation of more states will never end, even as the reasons for the campaign will more likely become less and less plausible. It is also unlikely that the states campaigners and their legislative supporters will ever offer truly convincing arguments regarding the optimum point where governance could be said to have achieved the goal of nearness to the people. The argument, indeed, will always boil down to a struggle between spatial nearness and efficiency nearness. Some larger polities, such as India (Pop, 1.2bn) with 28 states, have fewer states than Nigeria. One state in India, Andhra Pradesh, has a population of 84 million people. The third largest country in the world, the United States (Pop, 312m), has just 50 states, a numerical feat Nigeria seems bent on equaling at the rate it is going.

    Senator Mark and the National Assembly should not just be preoccupied with satisfying the yearnings of the people for more states, or of doing justice to all in the exercise, or even of bringing governance closer to the people, with all the dubieties involved. They must convince themselves of the economic wisdom of replicating the cost of governance in increasing number of states, which new administrative units entail, at a time of shrinking revenue vis-à-vis population growth, and seemingly interminable global economic crisis. The times, it seems, call for more prudence in management of economic resources, not careless dissipation.

     

     

  • ‘National Assembly can’t create states now’

    ‘National Assembly can’t create states now’

    One of the most cerebral Senators recently told Senate correspondents reasons why he is opposed to the creation of new states.

    How would you address the perception of those who want more states on the basis that it brings government closer to the people?

    Where is the evidence? Tell me out of the 36 states of Nigeria if you conduct a referendum now about the impact of government in their current states versus where they were coming from let us know whether there will be a positive affirmation. This is a country where we don’t do enough research. In most regions of the world the public sector, government is the largest consumer of research. This is the kind of question that the Federal Government should seek answer to through research. What do we have a National Bureau of Statistics for? Go and conduct a public poll and present facts and figures before the Presidency, before the Federal Executive Council, before the Economic Council, before the National Security Council and speak on the basis of evidence devoid of any political colouration. We are not doing enough research.

    You moved a landmark motion on the looming danger of bankruptcy in states and the need for fiscal evaluation. What informed your decision to move the motion? The basic consideration for the motion is largely driven by the reality that Nigerians live in states and in local governments and states and local governments are the areas where demands are being made on government for service delivery. Be it infrastructure, be it health services, education, rural roads, they are where people feel the impact of government. Those decisions are taken at the community level. I looked at resource distribution in Nigeria and I realized that the bulk of the resources of the country need to move closer to the people. I wanted to point the attention of Nigerians to the reality that the commonwealth of Nigeria is not servicing majority of Nigerians. That is the essence of the motion.

    The Senate unanimously adopted the motion as moved, but some of the states that were classified as near bankrupt claimed they are not bankrupt. How did you take the reactions of some states to your Bill?

    For me, I don’t engage in opinion peddling. Everything I’m saying is evidence based. So if anybody is saying that that is not the true position his or her state let them produce the evidence. The information that I used came from Governors Forum. It is not my data and I would imagine that no other forum is a better advocate of interest of states more than the forum that was voluntarily established by the governors to advocate for them. The forum conducted this research I only picked a publication of the research and subjected it to levels of analysis and exposed it to the public for Nigerians to know what is going on. So this is not an opinion of Senator Adetunmbi. It is the evidence provided by no less a forum than the Governors Forum to say that they are in distress and that their resources are not coping with their responsibilities, which is largely eroded by their ballooning wage bill and a growing cost of maintenance, the cost of governance at the expense of capital projects and service delivery to millions of Nigerians that reside in the states. You all know that most states, in addressing this resource gap resorted to heavy domestic borrowing and commercial credit. There is hardly any Nigerian state that does not owe banks as we speak. They are also exposed in the capital market where they raised bonds to do things that appropriations coming from the Federation Account and from their internally generated revenue cannot handle. Basically, resources from internally generated revenue and the Federation Account largely for most states are used for wage bills and overhead. For most of their capital projects they borrow either commercial lines of credit or bonds and I stand to be corrected.

    The motion threw up national debate, would you say that it achieved its purpose?

    We cannot continue to balkanize in the name of bringing governance to certain people. Evidence has shown that the three regions were better managed. The four regions were more prosperous. The more states we have, the less the state is able to deliver services. I attended a public school far away in Ifako-Ekiti where I spent the first 17 years of my life in Ekiti State. The first 17 years of my life I spent in the village, St. Michael’s Anglican Primary School. All my siblings, six of us, went through that school. That school is a shadow of itself to day. What we are saying is that the creation of states has tended to stretch the resources that are meant for development to cater for bureaucracy and to pay the wage bill of the civil service whose productivity is on the decline. That is the situation of the country today. In that type of scenario, tell me, does creating more states make sense? If 36 states are groaning under the burden of depletion of funds from the federation, would it be better if we had more than 36 states from the same commonwealth? You set up new Government Houses, new legislatures, new local governments, then you have more Senators, more House of Representatives members coming from areas that were under existing jurisdictions and they are enjoying that same level of representation. People may have legitimate reasons to call for creation of more states, but definitely majority of these requests are frivolous and they are reckless and therefore not in the best interest of Nigeria.

     

  • Flood: Ex-lawmaker faults FG’s N17bn release to states

    Flood: Ex-lawmaker faults FG’s N17bn release to states

    A  former member of the House of Representatives, Chief Ralph Okeke, yesterday, faulted the Federal Government’s decision to channel the N17.6 billion flood disaster relief fund through the governments of the affected states. According to Okeke, the bureaucracy in government would eventually reduce the fund by 50 percent before it gets down to the victims.

    While commending President Goodluck Jonathan’s quick response by mapping out fund to assist the flood victims in 35 states, the former lawmaker, however, expressed fears that victims of the natural disaster now in various refugee camps might not get the benefits for which the fund was intended.

    “My problem is the channel through which this assistance will get to the victims.

    Sending the fund through so many Ministries, Agencies, Departments and a Presidential Committee, will eventually reduce the fund to about 50 percent before the assistance arrives its destinations not because anybody is a thief but because of government bureaucracy,” he said.

    Noting that the government does not know what the flood victims need at this point in time, Okeke added, “this money (N17.6bn) may be wasted on things that the direct victims will not need and appreciate, and the result is that we shall keep hearing of billions and more billions but in the end, nobody will see anything and therefore no assistance as usual.”

    He said that as an indigene of the most affected area in the country (Anambra West LGA of Anambra State), “I know what would be meaningful to these suffering flood victims; what they really want is direct financial assistance.”

    “The little money they will get individually will enable them survive the impending hunger throughout next year’s farming season.

    It will also enable them buy seed yams and other seedlings for next year’s farming season which starts from December.

    “As we speak, there is an impending problem for the nation, which is hunger for the whole of next year, not only to the flood victims, but the nation at large because the flood washed away all the seed yams, seedlings of other crops harvested and un-harvested crops, including their properties which some of them acquired since the past 20 years.”

     

  • Hajj: Airlift of pilgrims to resume, eight , on standby, says NAHCON

    Hajj: Airlift of pilgrims to resume, eight , on standby, says NAHCON

    • Saudi Arabia may give limited waiver

     

    The Chairman of the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON), Mallam Mohammed Musa Bello yesterday said Nigeria still stands a good chance of meeting its target of airlifting pilgrims to Saudi Arabia once the row over Muharams (male guardians for female pilgrims) is resolved.

    He said eight states already have their pilgrims on standby having adjusted to the new rules imposed by Saudi Arabia.

    He said the visas of the 1,500 female pilgrims returned to the country from Jeddah and Medina are still valid because they were really not deported.

    There were also indications last night that the Saudi authorities might give a limited waiver to Nigeria on Muharams.

    Bello, who addressed journalists in Abuja on the impasse between Nigeria and Saudi Arabia, said there is no cause for alarm.

    He pledged that all pilgrims would be airlifted before Jeddah Airport is closed on October 20.

    He clarified that Nigeria did not violate Saudi laws as being insinuated.

    Bello said: “Hajj predates Nigeria; it predates Saudi as a country. The issue of Muharam is a fundamental aspect of hajj and we couldn’t have violated it.

    “If there was any change of rule, we were not communicated. We didn’t break any Saudi law, all hajj officials at all level have always been preaching to the pilgrims to obey the law of the land.”

    “Muharam is a fundamental issue in hajj exercise. There appears to be a change of position of Saudi government on who constitutes Muharam. It is always understood that the constitutionally established bodies like us can stand as Muharam. We are going to sort out all the technical issues so that they can go back”.

    He said that airlift of pilgrims will soon resume.

    He added: “The airlift of pilgrims will soon start. Eight states with 32 flight schedules are on standby to commence operation when the challenges are sorted out.

    “We are hopeful that we will meet our target before King Abdulazeez International Airport Jeddah and Madina airport are closed to traffic on October 20.

     

    “Our carriers- Max Airline, Medview, Meridien and Kabo air lines- are all set to commence airlifting.”

    On the fate of female pilgrims returned to Nigeria from Saudi Arabia, he added: “The female pilgrims were not deported contrary to insinuations and reports; they were returned and their return was a deliberate action of the Federal Government using a Nigerian Airline so that whatever lapses regarding their travel documents would be rectified. They were brought back on Nigerian planes by the Hajj commission.”

    “These pilgrims were not deported; their visas have not been stamped, they are still valid. They will certainly go back to perform this year’s Hajj.

    “All their travelling documents are intact and we would make sure all of them are returned as soon as the issue is sorted out.

    “Actually, it was a deliberate decision by the Nigerian government to return the affected female pilgrims home to address issues raised by Saudi authorities.”

    Responding to a question, Bello said: “The Federal Government delegation to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was also not denied.

    “It is totally unthinkable of a situation that high-ranking government officials would be denied visa. It is totally false and when they get there, the delegation will understand what happened and why it happened suddenly after over 20 flights have moved into the Kingdom.”

    A representative of the airline operators, Nura Harazim of Meridien Airline said: “The pilgrims were not deported. The challenge we have is that the Saudi authority did not carry us along on the change of law on the issue of Muharam.”

    As at press time, there were indications that the Saudi Arabian government might “grant a limited waiver to the Federal Government.”

    A highly-placed source said: “The Saudi Government wants substantial compliance with its laws before it could grant waiver.

    “I think in the next one or two days, this issue will be resolved.”

     

  • Governors’ meeting over Excess Crude Account deadlock

    Governors’ meeting over Excess Crude Account deadlock

    Attempts to seek out of court settlement on the disagreement between the federal and state governments over the excess crude account has failed, it was leant on Thursday.
    The account is reported to be in the region of $8billion.
    The 36 states governors who met under the umbrella of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum took the decision to head back to court to enforce the federal government’s adherence to the constitution on the issue at the end of their meeting late Wednesday night.
    Some of the Governors at the meeting include, Rotimi Ameachi of Rivers, Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti, Babatunde Fashola of Lagos, Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun, Murtala Nyako of Adamawa, Danbaba Danfulani Suntai of Taraba, Adams Oshiomhole of Edo, Sulivan Chime of Enugu and Abdulfatai Ahmed of Kwara.
    The Chairman of the NGF, Governor Amaechi, who made the disclosure at the end of their meeting, said the essence was to stop the illegal deduction from the revenue.
    This may also endanger the Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) set up by President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration to replace the account.
    SWF like the one before it is also facing some challenges as the governors are still uncertain about its methods of operations.
    The account was created by former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration in 2004 to act as a buffer during crash of crude oil price.
    The account was to save monies in excess of the budgeted benchmark price of crude oil.
    The states had argued that the account is illegal and that the federal government did not seek their input in the first place before establishing it, to receive funds in excess of estimated prices of crude oil.
    But the federal government on its part claimed that the account is being kept as a stabilization fund to protect the country against global economic crisis as witnessed between 2008-2009 global meltdown.
    However, the governors do not want to be part of it, describing the process as illegal.
    Besides, the governors also decried the process whereby it is only the federal government that has control over the use of the fund.
    The acrimony between the federal and state governments has been on since 2007.
    The governors had approached the Supreme Court, asking for a refund of their shares of the federation revenue which have been used to fund the subsidy regime among other things.