Regionalism will be our greatest undoing it failed in the first republic.

Regionalism or Unitary system will only succed in creating majority and minority states which is our bane today underdevlopment, curruption, nepotism etc

Nigeria is too sophistiscated and too large for one President to manage. I suggest we operate loose confederation an association of sovereign member states, that by law have delegated certain of their exclusivity to common institutions, in order to coordinate their policies in a number of areas, without however constituting a new state on top of the member states
The 36 states in Nigeria should be sovereign to have its flag, anthem, religions, time zone, police etc
The American example is a good one for us to learn from , though there's federal because of the unity in diversity. However how diversity is our major problem here.There is no point staying together with too much attachments to ourselves.
The 36 states should be allowed to develop on its own while adhering to the laws guiding the confederation.
Under a loose confederal system the proposed constitution is built on a confederate structure where state law is superior law, and the individual states retain their sovereignty and independence, including the right to secede.

This structure encourages competition between governmental units and ensures that government continues to obey the wishes of the citizens.

The central government's task is to take care of the common good as defined by the citizens in their collective capacities, ease cooperation, provide the states and the citizens with alternate solutions to their concerns, and provide cohesion and guidance. But if the people of one of the member states reject confederate legislative proposals, it has no power to compel enforcement.

plans for the new world order!!!
open ur eyes!!!!

believed some of of you did government in school, should the 36 state be scraped, where will the power now lies you are looking @ dictatorship
rather scrap those fools that call themselves something in law

i agree. the pros outweigh the cons in the long run. the cons simply being loss of more individual identity. but what has having so many identities profited naija ecxept make people more and more isolated from each other and ijebus fighting lagosians etc.
pros: unites more people, does away with so many ministers and governors not doing anything and just using up government money.
encourages healthy competition.
but i am afraid that the corrupt fathers and mothers in power will not allow this to happen because they will lose their source of livelihood. I think this is a bombastic and great and good idea. i hope it happens even if its the last thing that dying yaradua does. this is my prayer for nigeria. i hope it occurs and soon.

estateng:

I love dis idea. But a civilian cannot make dis happen. I pray that a coup takes place so that it can be enforced by an iron fist. I think thats what we need in dis country.

You are sooooooooooooo right, i just can't see a civillian govt allowing this to happen.

Very Idealist but not practical. Moreover, the creation of more states has helped in major development. I think we should leave things the way they are.

vislabraye:

Very Idealist but not practical. Moreover, the creation of more states has helped in major development. I think we should leave things the way they are. 

What is very impractical and almost foolish, is spending over half of the income on the country on paying government salaries. That is money that could be used for development. That is excessive and inefficient bureaucracy, more avenues for corruption and more avenues for mismanagement. Nigeria cannot sustain such a big government. I would only consider your argument if you would support that states control their resources, then we would see how many of these defunct and unviable states would be able to survive.

Nice Idea! But don't will think this will result in over domination of the nation's polity by certain sets of people and Increased corruption? Come to think of it, some of the reasons why States & LGs were created is to bring Government & Governance nearer to the people and promote everybody's involvement; so what becomes of this aim when states are scrapped?

moyaab:

Nice Idea! But don't will think this will result in over domination of the nation's polity by certain sets of people and Increased corruption? Come to think of it, some of the reasons why States & LGs were created is to bring Government & Governance nearer to the people and promote everybody's involvement; so what becomes of this aim when states are scrapped?

Such can still be achieved in a different structure. The current system is simply too big and inefficient, the irony is that government hasn't necessarily moved closer to the people. Perhaps the intentions were honourable at the start, but many of these states are defunct. People want development, give it to them, fund projects, and stop creating more states and more bureaucracy. What was one of the federal government's response to militancy and agitation in the niger delta? Creation of Ministry of Niger Delta. What kind of thinking is that? There were already agencies like NDDA set up earlier, but it seems the reigning trend is coming up with new ministries, new slogans and new agencies as the panacea for development. You want to develop somehwere, don't give us gist, just do it.

Mr. Anyaoku!!!! Pls say something else. America has more states and no-one has suggested scrapping their states. The problem with Nigeria is not state creation. In fact that is one essential characteristic of a federal system.
The Government must be closer to the people.

The problem is with the people who occupy those offices. Everybody holding political office looks at it as a profession rather than a call to serve.
Until political office holders are stripped of a lot of arbitrary powers they exercise, Until political office holders see themselves as the banker in the bank who realizes he must satisfy his customer or get fired. Then we will continue dancing round a circus.

Meldrick:

Mr. Anyaoku!!!! Pls say something else. America has more states and no-one has suggested scrapping their states. The problem with Nigeria is not state creation. In fact that is one essential characteristic of a federal system.
The Government must be closer to the people.

The problem is with the people who occupy those offices. Everybody holding political office looks at it as a profession rather than a call to serve.
Until political office holders are stripped of a lot of arbitrary powers they exercise, Until political office holders see themselves as the banker in the bank who realizes he must satisfy his customer or get fired. Then we will continue dancing round a circus.

How big is America? How big is Texas? What is the population of America? What is the internal generated revenue of states in America, say New York? What is the internal generated revenue for a state like Katsina? What are you talking about?

Megadeals:


Going by your logic, the only way for a town to develop is to become a state capital. This a very flawed view of how development occurs. No wonder every village and hamlet is asking for their own state.
The old western region did a lot of things better than what we have today. Education, health care delivery, road maintenance, internally generated revenue etc. Many of the states in Nigeria today cannot survive for six months without a handout from the federal government.

Well said.

long before Emeka Anyaoku made this suggestion I have been of the opinion that the right thing to do as a nation is to have stronger regions that will be united as a nation whereby inter-region developmental programs will be all that is need to unite us; a nation where all the regions will be made to keep 70% of their revenue and be used for their internal development.

The role of the federal government will be to fashion out a very good project like Rail, Major High Way etc and present the project to the Region, so that the regions will develop the project with their region and take to a level where it will be connected to other region to form a developed ring; or example; the federal ministry of transport can design a mass high speed train that will go round the country connecting all the regions; then each region will be expected to work with the master plan and award the contract for the development of their own part of the region to the border point to link the neighboring region who are also expect to have done the same.

Each of the region can develop various industries within their regions to meet international standards; industries like automobile, oil and gas, agriculture etc, there is nothing stopping the north to become the number one in grand-nut, and the west return to the top of cocoa, palm oil to the east etc.

We should also make effort to stop the use of state of origin and make use of place of birth and place of residence.

It is better to have 6 strong region and be united by one respected leader;

We should develop a unified biometric identification to determine who stays where and does what; a every border point everyone should be expected to indicate movement from one region to the other or even within the region, we should be able to determine possible location of every individual so as to reduce crime.

So instead of having state police, we can have regional police and district (state) police, as well as Federal Police acting like the FBI.

Using this simple arrangement the Ibo where my mother is from will never again ask for a separate nation or being marginalise; the Niger Delta where am from will relax the muscle of saying they are being short-change or the talk about resource control.

There will be less talk about state creation or local government; the issue of state (district) will be settled with each region have seven; while the region can determine number of local council it needs without any interference from the Federal government.

The stronger the regions in terms of physical development, the stronger the nation in the face of the world.

to be very sincere with you guys on NL, if I have my way, a country like Togo, Benin, and Niger should form a country because the major problem in Africa is that majority of the countries are not even capable of becoming a state let alone called a country, which is why they are usually call the world poorest. Imagine call Togo a country and calling Texas a state haba, we should stop deceiving ourselves; development is not all about building houses and roads but can you feed yourself? how much do you as a state generate from outside and inside; so we must have some area specifically as industrialized location, farming location, fisheries etc, so not everywhere must have skyscrappers, so we should find a way of developing our farm settlements so that even if I stay with my family in the farm am still directly or indirectly connected to the city through technology.

My children can attend school online, and I can even negotiate my business right from my farm house; people from the villages can get well educated and have peaceful life without having to go to the city.

We can develop our country to a level whereby we don't have kill ourselves at the embassy of foreign nations in order to get a good life.

for those who don't know this will reduce the number of con men finding their way into offices; and for those who do we can easily spot them flush them out during election that will be expect to be rig-proof; as we also have to develop a biometric system of election that will ensure that one person one vote

KnowAll:

We need about 50 States, I dont think we have enough States at the moment. We had 57 Provinces or there about during Colonialism, some of those Provinces are not yet States, the earlier they become States the better. Ogoja Province, Ijebu Province and a few others  comes to mind.

The revenue formula must be reviwed, the 55 % taking by the Federal Goverment must be cut to about 35% and giving to the States. All Roads within a State should be build, mantained and repaired by the State Goverment. The Federal Authorities should build and maintain roads linking one state to another.

All Universities , Secondary Schools should be handed over to the States, can u imagine FG in Abuja being responsible for Kings College in Lagos a Secondary school. It is not on.  The Federal Govement should wash it hands of Radio and Televesion Brodcasting that should be handled by the private sectors.

Airports should be in the hands of Private sector. Police  Should be handed over to States except the Fedral High Road Patrol who will patrol inter state high ways or the FCT Police based in Abuja. That is my take  

How many states can currently survive without the assistance of the federal government? So you want more defunct states and less money available for the federal government to support such states?

@ KnowAll - you should not allow sentiments to confuse you; we can have even 200 states (district) if we want but giving serious consideration for the strength of the region is key. We should end the era where the first lady will seat in one small office in Abuja and order the wife of the governors to come to Abuja immediately for meeting, I can imagine the answer the wife of a state in America will give the wife of the president. In Nigeria, we know that the wifes of all government will dash to Abuja within the next hour.

We should make the offices very unattractive so that people will not kill themselves to get there.

Talking about the schools, there is nothing wrong passing a bill that says that every school must be equal to the other in terms of quality of structure and facility within, as well as teachers; the idea of having some schools better than the other is double standard.

How many states can currently survive without the assistance of the federal government? So you want more defunct states and less money available for the federal government to support such states

You are missing the point here, who is the FG, it is a contraption formed in our mind to be some super monster that has money brewing out of every crack of its body. My friend the money FG is spending anyhow is our common-wealth. It is up to us as nation to work out a formula where the common wealth of the Nigerian nation will be distributed fairly and equitable.

At the moment the FG is taking too much from the pie, that formula must be revisited, the sooner that is done the better it will be.

nigggger is dead

we can even develop a border force police that will streamline the movement of criminals; this border police should be known as Joint Boarder Patrol, a national police force whose duty will be to secure and fight inter-regional crimes just like the FBI

KnowAll:

How many states can currently survive without the assistance of the federal government? So you want more defunct states and less money available for the federal government to support such states

You are missing the point here, who is the FG, it is a contraption formed in our mind to be some super monster that has money brewing out of every crack of its body. My friend the money FG is spending anyhow is our common-wealth. It is up to us as nation to work out a formula where the common wealth of the Nigerian nation will be distributed fairly and equitable.

At the moment the FG is taking too much from the pie, that formula must be revisited, the sooner that is done the better it will be.

yes the FG is eat out money that is why we have to create this 6 united region and make the FG the guiding force that will ensure that the country remain one; because if we continue this matter of state creation, one day we will see people from a community not large enough to be called a local government but just because they discover oil they will now demand for a state to be created for them.

America stopped creating state a long time ago; we should remember that the region government have worked for us in the past and the same thing is working wonders in South Africa, see Brazil as another great example; or are we larger than Russia that have less regions? Look at China, Japan, Korea, Australia.

Great nations didn't divide themselves into multiple nonsense; the reason for 51 states in America is the same reason why we have them called United States, we should please see this simple reason as a solution to our lingering problem. The fact that it has worked before with success stories record, it will work again.

dude no be state or regional politics be our wahala. it's the people. if u like have only one state, crooks will find a way of looting the money. haba. look at NEPA, They have changed the name so tey i no know the current name today. how far? no light. look at INEC, from FEDECO-NEC-NECON-INEC-SIEC etc yet we cant have simple elections

it is the people, let's change our attitude and things will start working even if it is 300 states it will work.

We should create an system that discourages embezzelement and laziness in the states and regions and that is making the states or regions WORK for their revenue and NOT depend on the FGs allocation.

Nigeria's case is quite unique. We have alot of ethnic groups in Nigeria alone, and there should be some sort of equity amongst them. They should have an identity.
On the other hand, instead if scrapping the states into six geopolitical zones, why not just make it 2 states at once.

It seems some of the messages/comments we make here (Nairaland) or other newspapers forums get to those concerned.
About two months ago when Anyaoku interview with the press was published in the Vanguard, I remember asking the man (Anyaoku) in my comment why he abandoned his ideology of scrapping the states and replace them with region/zones which he advocated when he returned to Nigeria after his tenure as a Commonwealth secretary general?

Now, he is back on track, he probably got the message.

Very good idea. we need to get rid of those political jobbers before we can make head way in Nigeria.

this is one of the best thing to do, for this we should take our country first, forget about ethincity or whoever that said this, we talking about conutry to move forward, we talking about minimizing cost in governance, we are talking about reducing fighting in government house and other indices of froud, this will work we should also remember that this six zone was brought by Dr Alex Ekwueme and some people critized him and even asked for his head but then it is working now, let each zone work for their ability and stop heating the centre politically then that of development can focused and make straight to the average village nigerian that live in the bush.

Thank God for internet forums. It is a great place to learn.
In my opinion I do not think Nigeria's problem is number of state it has. The major thing that should be pursued with all sincerity is Rule of Law. There should be strict law enforcement in every sector of the nation. If we have just 6 geopolitical zones as suggested by Mr Anyaoku and structures are not put in place to ensure people abide by state laws I fore see a worse off nation.
I think also that having more financial control in more people's hand is far better than money being held/controlled by few super powerfuls (even now I think of the issue of King Makers and the evil they perpetrate under present structure). Some way or the other money spreads around.
We must not forget that what we need in this country is for things to work and work efficiently too. Human being have the tendency to do some level of criminal acts and get away with it. It is when strict adherence to regulations/laws is enforced that people will sit right and do right. The Rule of Law should be so entrenched that 'sacred cows' are 'slaughtered' by the law just like any other animal when they break the law.

Jean!:

Thank God for internet forums. It is a great place to learn.
In my opinion I do not think Nigeria's problem is number of state it has. The major thing that should be pursued with all sincerity is Rule of Law.  There should be strict law enforcement in every sector of the nation. If we have just 6 geopolitical zones as suggested by Mr Anyaoku and structures are not put in place to ensure people abide by state laws I fore see a worse off nation.
I think also that having more financial control in more people's hand is far better than money being held/controlled by few super powerfuls (even now I think of the issue of King Makers and the evil they perpetrate under present structure). Some way or the other money spreads around.
We must not forget that what we need in this country is for things to work and work efficiently too. Human being have the tendency to do some level of criminal acts and get away with it. It is when strict adherence to regulations/laws is enforced that people will sit right and do right. The Rule of Law should be so entrenched that 'sacred cows' are 'slaughtered' by the law just like any other animal when they break the law.

You might need a better excuse than the whole "Rule of Law" rouse. If rule of law is going to be an issue with 6 geo political zones, why won't it be an issue with 36 states? The issue as stated by many is not rule of law, it is simply the fact that running 36 states is a major drain on the resources. A lot of states cannot support themselves, so why were they created? No need to divert attention to what this is not about. I really do not see where "rule of law" detracts from the validity of the argument with regards to the current set up. By the way, its easy to shout "rule of law, rule of law", ever asked yourself whose law we are trying so hard to abide by? The constitution is not even a people's constitution.

As stated earlier, I would have no problem with 36 states if the proponents of such a set up support a more federal system where states can control their resources, then we can talk. You can 't keep creating states anyway you like and expect the federal government (which gets most of its income from just a small section of the country) to support you, that is more money spent on sustaining more bureaucracy and less money potentially spent on development.

My proposal. No new states, constitutional reform, entrench true fiscal federalism,
parliamentary system of government and the rule of law. Everybody will dig the well
in his compound to get more water(literally)

I can assure you the average politician will think twice before standing for election and
there will be no room for all theses feasts taking place now. The parties will sit up and
each state will look for all avenues of revenue generation.

You have no business being a governor if you cannot generate revenue to develop your state.
All these super permsecs with one leg in the political party and the other in the civil service
will keep away.

Just a poser - how do you expect somebody who has never earned or kept 100,000 of
his own to behave rationally when he is faced with a budget of billions? That is the
situation our councillors/legislators and governors face. Greed sets in immediately.

this is a welcome development

Setting up the structure for the 6 zones is certainly not going to be without very tough electoral laws, so we should also look at the bright side of this great idea, I know some people think still think the creation of more state is the way to go, but lets take a critical look at the regional structure as well as the state and the reason why some people call for more creation instead of merging majority of those states to become one.

STATE: A lot of people call for the creation of state simply because they claim to be marginalized, but in the real sense of it, it is actually the greedy once who feel they have not succeeded politically, and they rush down to their people claiming the reason why they never got nominated was because the other tribe don't want their people at the top of government of the state. Those people calling fr the creation of more state ask them what can they offer alone that can sustain development for their people for only 10 years and their response will be as good as mine. The truth is that majority of those people still hope to get allocation from the FG, go to office share the loot, patch one small road and sign about it. But the moment you tell them that they have to generate their own revenue, you will get a different song. All due respect to some community that are calling for state creation, maybe they have only waterways, they surely can't stand alone because that alone cannot sustain them, so they need to join forces with others to achieve more.

REGION: Using the level of development in Lagos as a yardstick to draw my point for the SW, picture the successes of BRF in Lagos and as a result of his achievement someone like his is then given the opportunity to govern a region to further test the level of his leadership capabilities before finally deciding whether to go for the head of state or bow out of politics. In a regional setting every state (district or province) is expected to contribute in the best way possible for the development of the region - we know the know for a fact that some state in the current setting has cocoa, some have cassava, palm oil etc; it is expected in the regional setting currently being proposed, the different state of the region is expected to put resources together to develop this core area that needs all the financial support to grow so that the region can sustain it self. The same goes to other regions where some are famous for groundnut etc. Even the South South should know that oil will not be forever so if they become a region they should be able to invest in order area that can sustain them beyond the oil era.

The FG should be organised in such a way that the regions will be made contribute between 20%-35% for their revenue to the Federal coffers, so that institution like the military, federal border people, navy, air force, custom, immigration etc will managed by the FG, the FG should also manage inter regional project and the region will finance the project to the point of exit to connect to the other region etc.