*Says only South-east needs new state
Wale Igbintade
Prominent human rights lawyer, Prof. Mike Ozekhome (SAN), has taken a swipe at those proposing the creation of 31 new states in addition to the present 36 states that the country currently has, describing those proposing the creation of 31 new states as jesters.
Ozekhome said Nigeria only needs one additional state in the South-east to correct the inherent injustices in the country’s “warped federalist system,” to move towards growth and development and a “brand new Constitution that is legitimate, people-driven, autochthonous, credible and referendum-compliant.”
Recall that the House of Representatives Committee on the Review of the 1999 Constitution announced on Thursday that it had received 31 proposals for the creation of new states across the six geopolitical zones.
A letter from the committee on the requests was read by Deputy Speaker Benjamin Kalu during the plenary.
According to the letter, the proposals include five from the North-central, four from the North-east, five from the North-west, five from the South-east, four from the South-south, and seven from the South-west.
But reacting in a statement yesterday, Ozekhome said the exercise was buffoonery and needless distraction from the existential crises that the country faces.
He wrote: “I am surprised and greatly disturbed to hear that members of the NASS are proposing 31 additional states to the present already behemoth, overbloated and unwieldy 36 state structure that Nigeria operates.
“I see this needless venture amid more critical national issues as nothing but jesters playing out Baba Sallah’s Alawada Kerikeri histrionics and buffoonery.
“How can they be talking about creating an additional 31 states when over 2/3 of the present states are unviable entities existing on life support and merely dependent on the centre for monthly oxygenation under section 162 of the 1999 Constitution?
“How can we be talking of going through the stringent provisions of section 8 of the 1999 Constitution for a meaningless exercise that adds no value to a nation gasping for existential breadth?”
The renowned constitutional lawyer queried, “How can they be talking about creating new states when hunger, starvation, squalor and melancholy envelope inhabitants of the present minion states that literally beg for crumbs from the Abuja master’s table?”
Rather than wasting time on an exercise he considers dead on arrival, Ozekhome said further, “All that Nigeria needs now are only two things to correct the inherent injustices in our warped federalist system and move towards growth and development: one is an additional state in the South-east to equal others; and a brand new Constitution that is legitimate, people-driven, autochtonous, credible and referendum-compliant to help correct our deep fault-lines and lopsided federation that make some states mere vassals, consumers of the national cake without knowing or caring how the cake is baked.
“The NASS should immediately drop this provocative, funny and phoney butterflies-chasing and stop insulting our collective intelligence. Their present venture amounts to rubbing hot pepper deep inside Nigerians’ already bruised bodies of gaping sores. NASS, enough is enough please.”
