NASS to Create New States: Yoruba Council Makes 2 Demands
- The National Assembly has been challenged to look into the construction of the six regions in Nigeria as the lawmakers move to create more new states in the country
- Barrister Oladotun Hassan, the president of the Yoruba Council Worldwide, said states like Kwara, which was originally founded by the Yoruba, should not be in the north
- Hassan, in an interview with Legit.ng, also posited that all the regions should have an equal number of states and local governments for the sake of equality
Following the move by the national assembly to create more states in Nigeria, stakeholders and Nigerian advocates have continued to call for areas that should be looked into to ensure equality and balance.
Barrister Oladotun Hassan, the president of the Yoruba Council Worldwide, in an interview with Legit.ng, called for the review of the regional structure and arrangement.
Source: Twitter
Regions should have equal states, LGs
According to Hassan, every region should have equal states and local governments, and regional construction should be based on the language and culture of the people. He said:
"I will advocate for a national structure for states and local governments. There must be equilibrium, meaning what is good for the good is good for the gander. No region should be more in state, Senate and local government constituency than the other.
"There should be a review of the regional dichotomy between what we used to have and the need to create a region to suit the cultural land of each area, to have a common affinity, and to have a geographical boundary space of people with common language and identity.
"Regional interests specified that the Yorùbá people should not be part of Kogi state or that Yorùbá people, who are the major founders of Kwara state, should be tagged as North-Central."
The creation of regions should be reviewed
He lamented that the current regional structure was formed via military fiat without correspondence with the people, geographical boundaries and other considerations. The legal practitioner told Legit.ng:
"There should be balancing. If we need to have Midwestern, let's know that we want to have Midwestern. If we want to have a Middle Belt, let's know that we want to have a Middle Belt. There should be a division of states and regions.
"The way we came about our states was based on military fiat. There was no correspondence of that geographical boundary to be admitted as a state. The military used their fiat and powers overnight to construct states within their knowledge and equally established local governments accordingly.
"These factors needed to be reconsidered and reviewed in view of the fact that there would not be geographical attrition and no state-versus-state war when it comes to land delineation."
Lawyer speaks on creation new states
Legit.ng earlier reported that the National Assembly's recent moves to create new states may be the wrong step for Nigeria in the face of economic challenges.
Titilope Anifowoshe, a legal practitioner, in an interview with Legit.ng, posited that some states in Nigeria could not generate internal revenue and creating other states could mount more pressure on the federal government.
Anifowoshe then suggested that a new and working local government would bring government nearer to the people than creating new states.
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Source: Legit.ng
