Requests for new states hit 61

[SunNews]

• Creation difficult, but not impossible –Ekweremadu

From ADETUTU FOLASADE-KOYI, Abuja

Chairman of the Senate Committee on Constitution Review (CRC) and Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, has said request for new states is now 61, saying that Sections 8 and 9 of the 1999 constitution have made it 'difficult' and 'cumbersome' to create new states.

Ekweremadu said this when he received Enugu State Government's Committee on the Actualisation of Adada State, led by General Godwin Ugwoke (retd).

The committee had faulted the Senate CRC, which said in its report presented on June 5 that no serving parliamentarian signed its request for creation of Adada State from the present Enugu State.

The committee had earlier formally petitioned Senate President David Mark, insisting that it met the criterion as spelt out in the constitution, where it noted that its own request for Adada Stats was updated on May 31, 2012 and signed by serving parliamentarians, including the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Works, Ayogu Eze who was present at the parley which held in Senate Committee Room 3.01 yesterday.

Ekweremadu is also from Enugu State and he represents Enugu West Senatorial District in the Senate.

The Deputy Senate President, however, said as difficult as the process of creation of new states might be, it was not an impossibility in a democracy.

Speaking shortly after receiving a letter from Ugwoke, Ekweremadu traced how the Senate CRC got its data, which he said was analysed and prepared by a team of 13 consultants, led by Prof. Offor Nze.

He said while the Senate CRC did not muscle out any agitator for state creation, he, nevertheless, restated that although the National Assembly had not given up on state creation, it was a difficult task in a democratic dispensation.

His words: "For us, it is a welcome development to engage our constituents in areas they feel concerned about and they consider it a democratic dialogue which is a better option than protests and violence. So, we like the fact that you've taken time to come and engage us this afternoon on this particular topic.

"Let me state from the outset that, when the Senate Committee on Constitution Review (CRC) was put in place, we were conscious of the fact that we may have our vested interests and in doing so, I was appointed the chairman of the committee and to ensure that I remain neutral, we made sure that some other person represented my state.

"So, my position as the chairman of the committee, everyone expected me to be neutral and I tried as much as possible to be so.

And in the committee, we tried to make sure that we had a representation from the entire country that represented a constituency, even though we pride ourselves as senators of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. We tried to make sure that we were fair to all, particularly with regards to state creation.

"We has 61 requests and 13 consultants considered and analyses the requests. The shortcoming, with regards to Adada State, from the analysis they gave to us, was the fact that those who signed it were no more in the House of Assembly and they named them. They also named those who were no longer in the National Assembly and we named them. Some were no more in the local government and we named them.

"When we saw your letter to the Senate president which you published in the newspapers, of which we also reacted, there was no way we would have manufactured any request of our own if there was no request.

"We did not set out to muscle any request. We did not get our analysis from the air. It was based on what we got from our consultants and I don't think we manufactured requests. I've taken note of the issues raised and we are going to consider it.

"This is an opportunity to state clearly that the opportunity for state creation is a continuum. It's not limited to when there's constitution amendment. Section 8 of the 1999 Constitution already makes that clear. The section didn't make any specific time frame as to when it should be done.

"Any request that doesn't meet the specifications of Section 8 can still be amended or upgraded and presented accordance to that section of the constitution."

"We try to emphasize this point; that creation of state in a democracy is quite different from creation of states in a military regime. The process of state creation is more cumbersome and it is a process and not an event as it used to be during military regimes. It's a very tedious journey.

"We are not giving up on states creation. For a long time, it's going to remain difficult to create states; it may not be impossible but the word there is 'difficult', but when things are difficult, people still succeed. I don't want you or any other Nigerian requesting for states to get disillusioned or drop their pursuit."

 

Via: Sun News Online