akiOYIBO:
I believe nairaland is flooded with men of calibre, intelligence and experts.

I have tried to decipher it logically but all to no avail. Someone said "guy dis tin no dey logical, u no fit tink am out". I don't wanna concede to that easily so I seek for help here in nairaland.

If there is nothing like WEST WEST, EAST EAST, NORTH NORTH in Nigeria then why SOUTH SOUTH?

akiOYIBO:
I believe nairaland is flooded with men of calibre, intelligence and experts.

I have tried to decipher it logically but all to no avail. Someone said "guy dis tin no dey logical, u no fit tink am out". I don't wanna concede to that easily so I seek for help here in nairaland.

If there is nothing like WEST WEST, EAST EAST, NORTH NORTH in Nigeria then why SOUTH SOUTH?

kanubiafra:
guy how young are you. cos its obvious you are young. south south is the political name for biafrans who oil resources is been used to fight thier brothers in the east. let me explain more once a man from delta did a coup. they call it igbo coup and killed 3million people from the south east. but when oil is found in delta state. it becomes south south. and the people who did the coup will accuse thier south east brothers as oil thieves and land grabbers

kanubiafra:
guy how young are you. cos its obvious you are young. south south is the political name for biafrans who oil resources is been used to fight thier brothers in the east. let me explain more once a man from delta did a coup. they call it igbo coup and killed 3million people from the south east. but when oil is found in delta state. it becomes south south. and the people who did the coup will accuse thier south east brothers as oil thieves and land grabbers

MalcoImX:
In the 16 Cardinal Points Notation, anything West of South East (SE) before South West (SW) is South of South (S of S) but the correct nomenclature is South of South East (SSE) or South of South West (SSW).

Geopolitically, Nigeria (though unofficially) uses the 4 and 8 point notation and hardly can regions be referred to North of North East, South of South West or South of South East. But those regions that are called SS are in the SSE and SSW (note the SS tag) when locating them.

To my thinking, they may be so called because they are areas between the SE and SW, or ordinarily, I believe they are called South South because they're the most southern parts of Southern Nigeria, and it makes some sense.

MalcoImX:
In the 16 Cardinal Points Notation, anything West of South East (SE) before South West (SW) is South of South (S of S) but the correct nomenclature is South of South East (SSE) or South of South West (SSW).

Geopolitically, Nigeria (though unofficially) uses the 4 and 8 point notation and hardly can regions be referred to North of North East, South of South West or South of South East. But those regions that are called SS are in the SSE and SSW (note the SS tag) when locating them.

To my thinking, they may be so called because they are areas between the SE and SW, or ordinarily, I believe they are called South South because they're the most southern parts of Southern Nigeria, and it makes some sense.

immhotep:


cc lzaa

FreelanceRebel:


Nigeria GPZ is not 8 but 6, hence the adoption NW NE NC, SW, SE, SS.

SS should have being called SC but being that it extend into the ocean, unlike the NC that exist on the center of the map

Thats my thinking

chiagozien:
nothing like south south.

akiOYIBO:
I believe nairaland is flooded with men of calibre, intelligence and experts.

I have tried to decipher it logically but all to no avail. Someone said "guy dis tin no dey logical, u no fit tink am out". I don't wanna concede to that easily so I seek for help here in nairaland.

If there is nothing like WEST WEST, EAST EAST, NORTH NORTH in Nigeria then why SOUTH SOUTH?

kanubiafra:
guy how young are you. cos its obvious you are young. south south is the political name for biafrans who oil resources is been used to fight thier brothers in the east. let me explain more once a man from delta did a coup. they call it igbo coup and killed 3million people from the south east. but when oil is found in delta state. it becomes south south. and the people who did the coup will accuse thier south east brothers as oil thieves and land grabbers

kanubiafra:
guy how young are you. cos its obvious you are young. south south is the political name for biafrans who oil resources is been used to fight thier brothers in the east. let me explain more once a man from delta did a coup. they call it igbo coup and killed 3million people from the south east. but when oil is found in delta state. it becomes south south. and the people who did the coup will accuse thier south east brothers as oil thieves and land grabbers

abc115:

Delta and Edo States were never in the East, there were part of Western Region

MalcoImX:
In the 16 Cardinal Points Notation, anything West of South East (SE) before South West (SW) is South of South (S of S) but the correct nomenclature is South of South East (SSE) or South of South West (SSW).

Geopolitically, Nigeria (though unofficially) uses the 4 and 8 point notation and hardly can regions be referred to North of North East, South of South West or South of South East. But those regions that are called SS are in the SSE and SSW (note the SS tag) when locating them.

To my thinking, they may be so called because they are areas between the SE and SW, or ordinarily, I believe they are called South South because they're the most southern parts of Southern Nigeria, and it makes some sense.

izombie:
guy forget that thing. South south was just created in nigeria to make sure that igbos do not have access to the ocean. You people can try to paint it which ever way una want but the truth is the truth.

abc115:

Delta and Edo States were never in the East, there were part of Western Region

abc115:

Delta and Edo States were never in the East, there were part of Western Region

abc115:

Delta and Edo States were never in the East, there were part of Western Region

MalcoImX:
The people of those regions have always differentiated themselves from the Igbos, even before the 'creation' of the SS tag.

mbagideon:
I no really dey understand wetin make most people dey won dey relate SS and SE by force though them no relate

Westbestside:
Tell him

chiagozien:
nothing like south south.

The idea of the six geopolitical zones looks brilliant. Was it your idea alone?

The only other person who contributed to it was my friend, Bisi Onabanjo. Two of us discussed this in prison.

It was from there you now took it to the Constitutional Conference where it was adopted?

Well, it wasn’t. But Abacha adopted it. The conference itself didn’t adopt it; they wanted the status quo to remain because it was in the interest of some people to maintain the status quo.

Some have suggested the abolition of the states and for the six geopolitical zones to become the federating bodies. Do you concur?

The states don’t have to be abolished. It is a matter of nomenclature. When we had Eastern Region, we had 12 provinces which Michael Okpara created. Ogoja province, Calabar Province, Uyo Province, Annang Province, Enugu Province, Onitsha Province, Owerri Province, Umuahia Province and Port-Harcourt Province, Degema Province. There were six provinces in the minority areas and six in the Igbo areas, and all these provinces had their provincial commissioners, had their assemblies and had their provincial scholarship boards.

So, it is a matter of nomenclature. The states should be provinces of the regions. I am putting together a book called Nigeria: Thoughts on the provision of a stable polity, and in that book, there is an article by Shehu Shagari that states should become provinces of the regions.

Eventually, when I met with him when I was putting together these ideas, he said that he found that his suggestion was not very well accepted, so he wasn’t pursuing it anymore.

What kind of political structure do you think will make Nigeria politically and economically viable?

Going back to history we negotiated over a decade starting from Ibadan Conference in 1951 up to the conferences in Nigeria in London and so on until independence in 1960 –    a ten year period of negotiation and in the end what Nigerians agreed with the colonial masters on what would be the form of government on the basis of which they would be given independence was a federal form of government made up of three regions – North, East and West.

That was the form of government agreed with each region autonomous in many respects and with each region having its own Constitution and the Constitutions of the three regions annexed to the Federal Constitution in one document and with each region being able to develop at its own pace.

You will see for instance, Eastern Region that started as the poorest region, by 1966 the leadership had established agricultural plantations, rubber, cocoa plantations in Cross River State, palm in Anambra, Imo, Rivers and so on and they had industries, like Trans Amadi Industrial Estate in Port Harcourt, they were able to negotiate with foreign countries and were able to build the brewery in Umuahia, ceramic factory in Umuahia, the Calabar Cement Factory and there was development. They were able to build the University of Nigeria before the Federal Government took it over ten years after.

So, each region was given the freedom to exercise its initiative. It was Eastern Region that first started the Pay As You Earn tax in Nigeria. That was the creation of -21-  Bon Ejike— the first minister of finance of Eastern Region in 1952 – Pay As You Earn, automatic deduction from salary. It was first started in Eastern Nigeria because when the region was founded they had to find means of raising money. It was in the East that they first started Entertainment Tax, if you went to cinema if it was One and Six, you paid three pence tax to the government.

People used their initiative. If you went to the North you would find groundnut pyramids in Kano everywhere. In the West, cocoa was booming and they used it to invest property in Lagos, Western House, WEMABOD, Cocoa House in Ibadan all that was based on the initiative. Even free education in the West and so on.

I did my analysis while I was in Kirikiri Prison, the only problem with the form of government that we had with that structure was that it was lopsided. The structure of the regions at independence was such that one region, the North was said to have been bigger than the two other regions, East and West and when even Mid-West was created the North was still bigger than East, West and Midwest and in a parliamentary system based on population, the membership of the parliament allocated more seats to Northern Region than to all other regions put together.

If as they did in the North, they all decided to go into one party, a Northern party, and they elected all their legislators on that party, then they would continue to have the leadership of the country for ever which would not be palatable to the rest of the country. That was one fault in the disparity in the size of the regions.

The second problem I discovered was that within each region, you had majority group and a group of minorities. In the West, the Yoruba were the majority group, and the minority group was what grouped together in what became the Midwest. In the East, the Igbo were the majority and the minority group called themselves the COR State – Calabar, Ogoja, Rivers. In the North, Hausa Fulani were the majority group and the minority were mostly the Middle Belt and to some extent, the Kanuri.

So, you had a struggle within each region between the majority and the minority. So, I decided to cure these two problems that we must have parity of regions between the Old North and the Old South and that was why I decided to have parity of geopolitical zones between the North and the South.

The North was divided into Northwest, Northeast and North-Central and the South was divided into Southeast, Southwest, and South-South.

And it also helped to have parity between the majority regions and the minority regions; the majority regions being in the Northwest, mostly Hausa-Fulani, Southwest, mostly Yoruba and the Southeast , mostly Igbo; and the minority regions being Northeast where you have the Kanuri with a number of ethnic groups in Bauchi, Gombe, Adamawa and Taraba; and in the North Central you have Benue, Plateau, Nasarawa, Kogi, Kwara, Niger; and in the South you have the minorities in the former Midwestern Region and the minority of the Southeast region who together formed the South-South.

So instead of three regions, you now have six regions; three majority, three minority; three in the North, three in the South – parity between North and South, parity between majority and minority and the apportionment of representation would be as we negotiated with our colonial masters on the basis of which we got our independence.

izombie:
guy forget that thing. South south was just created in nigeria to make sure that igbos do not have access to the ocean. You people can try to paint it which ever way una want but the truth is the truth.