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Seven States At 40 by Shegman22(m): 9:05am On Feb 09, 2016 |
Seven of this country’s 36 states, together with the
Federal Capital Territory [FCT], marked the 40th
anniversary of their creation on Wednesday last
week, February 3. Niger, Bauchi, Gongola [since
renamed Adamawa], Benue, Imo, Ondo and Ogun
states as well as FCT were created by General
Murtala Mohammed in his unforgettable broadcast
of February 3, 1976, during which he also
announced the relocation of the Federal Capital
from Lagos.
Of the seven states, Ogun State made the biggest
splash of the 40th anniversary with a program
attended by President Muhammadu Buhari that
included lectures and the commissioning of several
projects. The other states marked the anniversary in
a low-key manner consistent with the times. The
anniversary came at a time when most state
governments are finding it difficult to pay workers’
salaries, ex-workers’ pensions and to maintain their
basic services to the people, not to mention
undertaking capital projects.
The state creation exercise of 1976 was the second
one since General Yakubu Gowon created the first
set of 12 states out of the four regions in 1967.
Even though the first exercise hastened the onset of
the civil war, state creation has since turned out to
be one of the most popular acts of governance in
Nigeria.
Agitation for new states has been so recurrent in
Nigeria that state creation exercise has been
undertaken five times namely in 1967, 1976, 1987,
1991 and 1996.
The seven states created in 1976 are barely
recognisable today in terms of their territory. In his
broadcast of 1976, General Murtala Mohamed went
to great lengths to spell out the boundaries of the
new states, down to provinces and divisions. Still,
many problems remained on the ground with actual
boundaries. Boundary disputes led to clashes
between communities and local authorities in many
places. The Federal Government had to set up a
committee under Justice Mamman Nasir that went
round the country to address the problem. A
permanent National Boundaries Commission was
later created.
Of the seven states created in 1976 only Ogun State
has remained stable, territorially speaking.
Neighbouring Ondo State was split into Ondo and
Ekiti states in 1996. Abia State was carved out of
Imo State in 1991 and a part of Abia State was
incorporated into Ebonyi State in 1996. Benue State
lost the old Idah, Ankpa and Dekina Divisions to
Kogi State in 1991. Gongola State was split into
Adamawa and Taraba States in 1991 while Gombe
State was carved out of Bauchi State in 1996. Niger
State also underwent territorial change in 1991 to
incorporate the old Borgu Division from Kwara State.
Territorial changes apart, how have these states
fared since their creation? There is no doubt that all
of them have experienced much infrastructural
changes over the last 40 years.
The respective state capitals of Minna, Bauchi, Yola,
Makurdi, Owerri, Abeokuta and Akure have since
become much larger towns and cities with the influx
of civil servants and businessmen. Many new
housing estates were built, together with roads,
flyover bridges, secretariat complexes, more
schools and hospitals, residential houses as well as
varying degrees of commercial and industrial
establishments. To that extent, some people will
argue that the exercise was justified.
Yet, the root cause of the agitation for separate
states since the First Republic was the cry by
ethnic and religious minorities of domination by the
larger groups. It was this cry, more than anything
else that Gowon sought to address with the first
state creation exercise of 1967. To that extent the
exercise did not succeed because while it
immediately placated the group crying of
marginalisation, it created new majorities and new
minorities in every new state and quickly generated
cries for even more states. Since then, we have
learnt that cries of marginalisation will not end in
Nigeria even if we create 100 states because there
will always be a new minority. The groups that
once accused some other groups of dominating
them in the old regions and states turned around
and did much the same thing when they acquired
majority status.
Somewhere along the way the justification for state
creation changed from cries of domination to claims
that a new state will be economically viable.
Agitators for every new state claimed that it has a
lot of mineral and other resources to fend for itself.
But what happened in the end? Even the states that
are marking their 40th anniversary today are among
the ones that have trouble paying their workers’
salaries. To that extent they have not made an
agricultural, commercial and industrial success of
themselves.
This is not to say that the states are entirely
responsible for the fate that befell them, since the
Federal Government has a lot more powers and
responsibilities to shape economic policy and
fortunes. For example, the Federal Government had
a near monopoly of power generation and supply as
well as control over currency, tariffs, taxation,
banking, security and tertiary education for most of
the last 40 years. Under pressure and with evidence
of its poor performance it steadily relaxed its grip
over some of the areas and allowed other players to
come in, which has made a lot of difference in
recent decades.
Still, the states should not just indulge in buck
passing and blame the Federal Government for their
woes because in most cases they made themselves
utterly dependent on the monthly Federation
Account allocations which they collected and
squandered. Once these funds started to dry up,
they have no fall back positions. All the states
created after 1976 should sit up and learn the right
lessons so that when their own 40th anniversaries
come up, they will not be lamenting and passing
bucks like the Seven States of 1976.
Source:- Daily Trust |
Re: Seven States At 40 by Olamipapa(m): 9:06am On Feb 09, 2016 |
See history here. |
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