National Confab And States Creation

Last week Thursday, the delegates at the Nigerian National Conference endorsed the creation of 18 states in addition to the 36 states that currently make up the country. This is apart from a state the conference agreed should be created in the south-eastern part of the country. If these 19 states are added to the 36 states, it means Nigeria would have 55 states, three states more than the United States of America with a population that is more than that of Nigeria.

The proposed new states include: Aba, to be carved out of the present Abia State; Katagum, from Bauchi State; Ijebu, from Ogun State; Amana, from former Sardauna Province; Apa, from Benue State; Anioma, from Delta State, Savannah, from Borno State; Etiti, from South-East, Njaba/Anim, from Anambra and Imo states; Gurara, from Kaduna State; Ghari, from Kano State; Adada, New Oyo from Oyo State; Orachi, from Rivers State; Ogoja, from Cross River State; and Kainji, from Kebbi and Niger states. The conference is yet to name two other states, one each from the South-East and South-West zones.

The primary reason given for this decision is to correct the imbalance in the number of states per zone in the country and, according Mike Ozekhome, a lawyer and one of the delegates, the idea is to bring government closer to the people. For us, however, we do not think this argument is tenable. Bringing government to the people at the grassroots is the major reason for the creation of the Local Government system in Nigeria.

We are also forced to ask if the delegates have suddenly become very far from the realities in Nigeria to the extent that they have forgotten their earlier resolutions, one of which was that the country must cut the cost of governance. How does the country cut the cost of governance with the creation of such number of more states?

It is no longer a secret that most of the states in the country, which some analysts put at 34, are not even viable. A recent document on the analysis of internally-generated revenue by state governments in the country between 2010 and 2012, showed that, apart from Lagos and Rivers that can maintain government even without allocation from the Federal Government, all the other states are only struggling. For example, Bayelsa, despite its oil wells could not post N5bn IGR in a year.

The document showed that Yobe state generated N1.7 billion in 2012 while Borno and Zamfara made N2.4 billion and N2.5 billion. Taraba, Niger, Kogi, Gombe and Ekiti posted a little above N3 billion as shown by the documents during the same period while Katsina, Kebbi and Osun made a little above N5 billion; Adamawa made N4.6 billion and Nasarawa announced N4.1 billion in the same period. Benue made N8.4 billion, Ondo N10.1 billion and Ogun made over N12 billion. Lagos made N219.2 billion at the same period. Kano made N7.3 billion in 2011 but has not declared its figures for 2012.

Thus, if these new states are created, how would they be funded? Also, most of the states in Nigeria are bogged down by both domestic and foreign debts and mostly depend on the Federal Government to run their affairs.

The National Confab should begin to think straight, stop contradicting itself and work with the realities prevailing in the country. The focus should be that the local government system is strengthened to meet its objectives while the various state governments should, in conjunction with the local government, set achievable agenda and standards and ensure that such are met for the betterment of the people. Creation of more states is not the solution to Nigeria’s problems of corruption, mismanagement, insecurity and lack of serious leadership.