There have been various debates in the last few days, on how creation of more States in Nigeria could lead to wasteful spending, and a projected avenue to enlarged corruption.
9News Nigeria recalls that the Deputy Speaker of Nigeria’s House of Representatives, Benjamin Kalu, had on Thursday 6th of February, 2025, said the House had received proposals for the creation of 31 new states.
Kalu, who is also Chairman of the House Constitution Review Committee, revealed that six new states were proposed in the North Central, four in the North East, five in the North West ,five in the South South, five in the South East and seven in the South West.
According to the law maker, the proposed states include Okun, Okura and Confluence from Kogi; Benue Ala and Apa from Benue; FCT State; Amana from Adamawa; Katagum from Bauchi; Savannah from Borno; Muri from Taraba; New Kaduna and Gujarat from Kaduna State; Tiga and Ari from Kano State Kainji from Kebbi; , Adada from Enugu; Orlu from Imo and Aba from Abia,Etiti and Urashi in the South East.
Others are Ogoja from Cross River, Warri from Delta, Ori and Obolo from Rivers, Torumbe from Ondo, Ibadan from Oyo, Lagoon from Lagos and Ogun, Ijebu from Ogun, and Oke Ogun/Ijesha from Oyo/Ogun/Osun states.
Reacting to the development on Sunday, a former Deputy National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP,Chief Olabode George, has faulted the call for creation of 31 additional states in Nigeria.
Speaking in an interview with reporters on Sunday, the PDP chieftain said creation of additional states would not solve the country’s challenges or promote its development.
He argued that the fact that some existing states were not viable clearly showed that state creation would not solve the country’s deep structural problems.
Instead, George called on the National Assembly to make efforts to ensure the country achieves true federalism. Saying it was a sure way to achieve accelerated development .
Some of his words were; “Don’t tell me we should create more states. Forget about more states. We want to create more states and then everybody will be rushing to Abuja. This is not sustainable.
“Let us look at our federal structure first, the same federal system we run with America. Why are we not running it as they run their own?
“Go to New York City, the Mayor of New York controls the airport ,the John Kennedy Airport, he controls the ports ,the sea ports. The Mayor of New York ,not the governor.
“Go to New Orleans, the mayor there controls the ports. The same in Texas ,all oil companies are not controlled by the President. That is federalism. Those people don’t run to Washington every hour to meet the President .
“In America, they have state police and even county police .Why can’t we have such here ? Creation of more states is not sustainable. What we need now is to address the problems in our federal structure”, he said.
Calling for devolution of power ,George noted that power devolution would catalyst the development of the country.
He, however, said the present constitution was not working and there was the need to have a new constitution to drive the country’s development.
The PDP chieftain said the current constitution put too much power in the centre, leaving the states and local governments helpless and incapacitated.
“There is no state in this country that The Almighty has not endowed. It is either agriculture or minerals or human resources.
“But the constitution of this country is not right. We need to revisit it and now allow those states to manage themselves ,manage their resources.
“That is the beginning of the cleansing of this country .Nothing is working because the foundation is faulty, ”he said.
George called for the adoption of the recommendations of the 2014 Confab to achieve true federalism and address the country’s numerous challenges.
