Constitution Amendment: New States, LGs Creation Top South-West Demands

Clamour for creation of more states and local government areas dominated the agenda at the South-West House of Representatives Public Hearing on constitution amendment held in Lagos on Saturday.

Some of the states demanded include New Oyo State with headquarters at Oyo, Remo State with headquarters at Sagamu, Ijebu State with headquarters at Ijebu-Ode, and Oke Ogun State.

A member of the House of Representatives, Hon. Abass Agboworin Adigun, who is also a member of the Committee, equally moved for the creation of Ibadan State with Ibadan proposed as the capital.

Agboworin in the Bill, which he titled: “An Act to Amend the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended) to provide for the creation of Ibadan State with Ibadan as the proposed Capital City and for Related Matters, 2025,” and sponsored by him, proposed that the new state, should comprise 32 local government areas.

He listed the local governments to include Ibadan North LGA, Ibadan North East LGA, Ibadan North West LGA, Ibadan South East LGA, Akorede LGA, Ibarapa East LGA, Ibarapa North LGA, Ido LGA, Ona-Ara LGA, Apete LGA, among others.

The lawmaker declared pointedly that the new state created had enough resources, both human and capital resources, to stand and compete with other thriving states in the country.

Also agitating for Ibadan State, Mr. Nurudeen Akinade and Chief Niyi Akintola (SAN), in their separate memorandum submitted to the Committee also demanded for the creation of Ibadan State.

Akinade argued that the creation of Ibadan State is long overdue, saying that the population of the people in Ibadan tripled the population of other states, having a population of 4.2 million.

He noted that Ibadan alone has a land square of 28,000 square kilometres.

For his part, Akintola said each community that makes up Ibadan is larger than many towns and villages.

He explained that the number of local government areas currently in the city are too small to adequately take care of the interest of the people, stressing that some states with higher numbers of local government areas are far smaller in size compared to Ibadan.

Hon. Wale Awe stated that creation of Remo State, out of present Ogun State is necessary, so that the interest of Remo people can be adequately represented, adding that the proposed state has enormous resources to take care of itself.