Creation of new states difficult, not impossible – Ekweremadu

DEPUTY Senate President, who is also the Chairman of the Senate Committee on the Review of the Constitution, Ike Ekweremadu, has said the path to the creation of new states is tedious “but not impossible.”
Ekweremadu said the requirements set out in Sections 8 and 9 of the Constitution offered a number of hurdles which must be overcome before a new state can be created.
He spoke when he received in his office on Wednesday the Enugu State Government’s Committee on the Actualisation of Adada State. The Enugu committee was led by Maj.-Gen. Godwin Ugwoke (retd.).
Ekweremadu had reported to the Senate that none of the requests for new states met the constitutional requirements.
He said, “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 in accordance to that section of the Constitution.
“We try to emphasise this point; that creation of state in a democracy is quite different from creation of states under 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.”
Ekweremadu noted that his committee had been fair to all groups in the process of the amendment of the Constitution and the documents for state creation were carefully analysed.
He said, “We have 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.”