Twelve members of the National Assembly Constitution Review Committee on Tuesday urged the Assembly to create new states or forget about the entire review exercise.

Assembled under the aegis of Forum of the National Assembly for the Actualisation of State Creation, with membership drawn from the Senate and the House of Representatives, the lawmakers reiterated that the task of demanding for state creation was given to them by their constituents back home.

The new states, which must be given priority in the constitution amendment, they insisted, must be created before the 2011 general elections in the country.

Chairman of Senate Committee on Information and Media Affairs, Ayogu Eze, presented the group's demands to newsmen on Tuesday.

Eleven other members of the group accompanied Eze to the press conference.

They include Interior Affairs Chairman, Lekan Mustapha (PDP, Ogun), Chairman of Senate Committee on Federal Character and Inter-Governmental Affairs, Smart Adeyemi, Adego Efrekaya and Sulemian Nazif as well as members from the House of Representatives.

"We met this morning and we have taken some very far-reaching decisions. Some have left for different assignments. This place was full. And all of us agreed on one thing; that there can be no constitution amendment in Nigeria without state creation.

"All of us have been sent here by our people. And our people have asked us to be part of the constitution amendment if they are creating states.

"We believe that state creation is very possible and highly realisable within a civilian dispensation.

"We are going to dialogue among ourselves and put structures in place to make sure that we bring this about before the next election," Eze said.

He added: "These states that will be created will take part in the next election. We are going to continue this dialogue. We are going to continue to meet and in the course of the meeting we will carry you along as we continue to push this agenda".

http://www.independentngonline.com/news/head/article01

Just divide the bloody country.

blacksta:

Just divide the bloody country.

Into how many viable parts?