The unanimous vote by the ongoing National Conference to create 18 new states is totally unjustified and irrational in the present circumstances and therefore cannot be said to be in the national interest. The measure is borne out of greed and political expediency and would only further increase the already high cost of governance, which has become a major drain on limited public resources. The measure is even contradictory, having regard to several other confab resolutions on the need to reduce the costs of governance. It bears repeating that more states will not address the fundamental problem of the polity – the structure of the state and of government. While the general consensus is that the 1999 Constitution is far from ideal and requires a comprehensive review, making it reflective of the peoples’ desire cannot be anchored on a voracious desire to share the national cake.
The Committee on Political Restructuring and Forms of Government recommendation for the creation of 18 new states to be added to the existing 36 states in the country was unanimously adopted by the plenary. To douse tension, agitations and feelings of marginalization by some minority groups, an additional state will be created in the South East zone to put it at par with other zones of the country. The proposed states are Orashi, New Oyo, Etiti, Savanna, Adada, Njaaba-Anim, Apa, Gurara, Ijebu, Ogoja, Kainji, Katagun, Amana, Sadauna, Aba, and Anioma among others. Advocates of the measure claim more states are the needed elixir for peace, unity and security in the country. They argue that more states would meet the needs of agitators, bring a sense of belonging to the people, promote healthy competition among the federating states as well as guarantee peace and security.
But as experience has shown, attempts at creating more states to accommodate minorities and marginalized groups have only engendered more contradictions in the polity because of the skewed nature of the Nigerian federation. The outcome of the civil war informed the break-up of Nigeria into 12 states by the Yakubu Gowon administration. Fiscal manipulation guided later efforts; reason why some states, despite paucity of their population, have more local governments than others.
The confab’s decision to create 18 new states across the six geo-political zones may be understandable as it is adequately provisioned in Chapter IV of the 1999 constitution. But beyond the latitude offered by permissive free speech, not every decision is rational, and this could be said of the confab’s misguided clamor for more states that would make Nigeria 1 54-state federation. As a matter of fact, more states would further increase the already high cost of governance as more resources will be spent servicing the corrosive, inefficient patronage-ridden State bureaucracies across the country to the detriment of national development. Despite federal allocation, many states, especially oil-producing ones are broke; or in the red. What is urgently needed is a public enlightenment campaign on the lack of viability of new states vis-à-vis the country’s socio- economic and political reality.
Conservative estimates by governance experts put the number of states that can survive without federal allocation, to no more than three. With a huge debt portfolio of N1.86 trillion, the country’s 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) are in dire financial straits. The Debt Management Office (DMO), which, in its latest report put the total liabilities at N1.86 trillion as at the end of June last year, said this figure was up from the N1.42 trillion level of December 2012.
The report listed Lagos State as the highest debtor with a contingent liability of N238.262 billion, comprising a local debt of N157.536 billion and a foreign component of N80.726 billion. Lagos is followed by oil-rich Bayelsa State with a contingent liability of N167.173 billion, made up of a domestic debt stock of N162.822 billion and a foreign debt liability of N4.350 billion while Cross River State is third with a total public debt of N113.598 billion, consisting of a local debt component of N96.544 billion and foreign debt of N17.053 billion. However, on a debt solvency and liquidity ratio analysis relative to revenue inflow to states, Cross River State is the heaviest debtor.
Next to Cross River is Rivers State, which as at June last year had contracted a total public debt of N112.229 billion made up of N106.880 billion local debt and N5.349 billion foreign debt. Rivers is followed by Delta State with a public debt of N93.304 billion, comprising a local debt of N90.843 billion and a foreign component of N2.46 billion. Imo and Kaduna states are next with total debts of N69.979 billion and N53.808 billion respectively. Crisis-torn Borno and Yobe emerged the least indebted with Borno pulling the least public debt of N3 billion, consisting of N1.684 billion local debt and N1.894 billion foreign debt. Yobe on the other hand has only contracted a debt toll of N6.939 billion, made up of N2.088 billion local debt and N4.851 billion external debt.
Given these unedifying statistics, those clamoring for more states should drop the idea. They should rather be seeking ways of harnessing the existing states into viable units. Presently, the states are drain pipes and electoral battlegrounds for self-aggrandizing political jobbers. If the country operated a system of good governance and accountability, the agitation for state creation would have remained a footnote in the national discourse. The confab ought to address the fundamental issue of the role of the local government as a tier of government in a federation which ideally is contracted between regions and the center in a manner that renders the contracting parties autonomous and coordinate. This is one issue that has been overlooked by the confab; and it is an issue that will return to haunt the country unless decisive enough actions are taken and the political will to do the right thing is mustered to secure the rightfulness of local governments as an integral part of the federating units.
The alternative to restructuring the Nigeria federation to unleash the development capacity of the component units cannot be multiplication of the existing state structures, but rather; shrinking them into larger productive units in order to reduce the cost of governance and free resources for national development. Nigeria’s economy has been groaning under the weight of the cost of governance which takes over 70% of its earnings to the detriment of capital project. Infrastructure has been neglected while other indices of development are de-emphasized in order to foot the cost of governance. This is the time to deepen Nigeria’s democracy; and give it a new identity for it to live up to its billing as government of the people by the people and for the people.
