Senate raises fresh hope on state creation

The Senate may have reversed itself over its position on creation of new states as the Chairman of its Constitution Review Committee, Ike Ekweremadu, on Friday, raised fresh hopes that the Seventh National Assembly was considering the creation of new states.
Ekweremadu, who is also the Deputy Senate President, said this when he received a delegation of the proposed Bori State Movement led by a Second Republic Senator, Dr. Cyrus Nunieh, who was in the Senate to submit a memorandum on the creation of the proposed state.

Ekweremadu said that new states could still be created provided that requests for their creation fulfilled the provisions set out in section 8 of the 1999 Constitution.

He told the delegation seeking the creation of the proposed Bori State from Rivers State, that the Senate had not totally jettisoned the idea of new states creation.

Ekweremadu announced that his committee would sit next week to consider the Bori State request and that, “should the request fulfill constitutional provisions, the National Assembly would then forward the request to the Independent National Electoral Commission.”

He explained that the INEC would then be required by the Constitution to conduct a referendum on the request.

Ekweremadu said, “Having received your request, I can assure you that we are going to convene a full meeting of the Constitution Review Committee in the Senate to have a look at it.

“We will get our technical people to look at it as well, compare it with the provisions of the Constitution and once we are satisfied that you have met the requirements of the Constitution, we would be more than eager to advise the National Assembly to send your request to the Independent National Electoral Commission to do their own bit.

“This is because it (INEC) has a responsibility in this regard, namely; to conduct a referendum and that, we would be happy to do.”

Nunieh had passionately appealed to the Senate CRC to help create Bori State in order to give the people in the South East senatorial district of Rivers State, a sense of belonging.

He also assured that the new state would bring lasting peace to the area, and that those who agitated for new states, including Ekiti, Ebonyi, Gombe, at the Constitution conference in 1996 were granted their wishes, leaving out only the Ogoni people and their neighbours.

Nunieh added that when created, Bori State would comprise Khana, Gokhana, Tai, Eleme, Opobo/Nkoro, Oyigbo and Andoni local government areas, which made up of Ogoni, Andoni, Opobo, Nkoro, Oyigbo and Eleme nationality.

Bori State, he further added, “would be economically viable as the area is blessed with human and material resources which are still relatively untapped.

He said, “As a Second Republic Senator (1979-1983), I consider it a great privilege that you have given me the opportunity to address you as the representative of the Ogoni people.

“We have come here and we started coming here when the issue of creation of states started In 1996, that was even the second time we would be demanding for the creation of Bori State.”