Senate: 57 request pending for additional state creation

As part of its effort to restore peace and unity in the country, the Nigerian Senate had declared that they have acknowledged requests for more 57 new states in Nigeria.

 Although they are yet to mention the names of the states being requested, the Senate leader, Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba (SAN), confirmed it saying, “We have 57 requests pending before us for state creation. I know that people should know that they have to negotiate and lobby at least two thirds of the 36 states of the federation to get any section of the 1999 Constitution amended”

He said this at the round table discussion organized by the National Institute for Legislative Studies in Abuja. Ndoma-Egba also disclaimed the speculations that National Assembly had a hidden agenda to amend the constitution. He maintained that the leadership of the National Assembly had realized that it would be difficult to amend the constitution if many issues were listed for amendment.

According to the law maker, “National Assembly has no position on any of the proposals before it on constitutional amendments. We have no agenda; the Senate leadership does not have any agenda. The lesson we have learnt in this is that we don’t have to take so many things into the amendment. We have learnt that we can no longer take the cocktail approach and think we will succeed.”

Airing his views on the issue raised by the National Leader of the Action Congress of Nigeria, Bola Tinubu, for the complete whipping off of the Senate, Ndoma-Egba countered the position of the former governor of Lagos state.
In his words, “ I don’t think  scraping off  might  be to save cost as postulated by the former governor of Lagos State because the total amount allocated to the entire Senate is a mere three percent of the nation’s total budget and  this  amount is too little to affect the finances of the country. N150bn allocated to run the entire Senate is a fraction to what we pay to an importer whose identity we may not know. Beside this, there was no way the country could operate only one legislative arm at the federal level because while the members of the House of Representatives are elected on the basis of population, those in the senate are elected on the basis of equality.”
He believes that with this process, minorities in different states are dully represented.