Chief Adebayo Akande, chairman of the Splash FM in Ibadan, has spoken against creation of additional states in the country.

He made the assertion at the Nigeria Union of Journalist (NUJ), Oyo State Council’s Personality Programme, “Hot Spot”, on Wednesday in Ibadan.

Rather than create more states, Akande called for devolution of powers from the federal to the states to strengthen the second tier of government.

Akande, a prominent Ibadan indigene and proprietor of the first private radio station in the state, argued that there was too much of money in the centre to the detriment of the states

“Let us all campaign for the devolution of powers from the federal to the states rather than creating all the mini states that will not be viable at the end of the day,” he said.

According to him, if  more states are created, “money allocated to such states will end up as recurrent expenditure to pay workers salary, pay emoluments and for none existing projects”.

“Unless we can be sure there will be good governance, there will be transparency and accountability, people who will make up the new states will not be different,” he said.

Akande noted that the reasons often given by people agitating for new states was that the government would be closer to the people and most especially to the rural people.

He, however, asked rhetorically “how close are the governors to the populace’’?

“Most of the present states are not viable, so why do we need to create more?’’ he asked further.

 “As an Ibadan man, I will not vote for the creation of Ibadan State, because we have 11 local governments in Ibadanland only four of them are viable, others are bankrupt,” he said.