Chairman,
Senate Committee on Constitution Review and Deputy Senate President, Chief Ike
Ekweremadu, has debunked reports that the National Assembly has ruled out the
possibility of creating more states.

He made the clarification in Calabar while declaring
open the two-day zonal public hearing on the review of the 1999 Constitution
for the South-South geo-political zone in Calabar, Cross River State.

According to him, “the position of the National Assembly
was to ensure that every request for state creation would be treated on its
merit.”It is not true that the National Assembly has ruled out state creation.
It is also not true that it is pursuing any special agenda on the matter. We
have no such powers.”

The Deputy Senate President maintained that, the
position of the National Assembly is that every request is treated on its
merit, and  Nigerians need to understand
that the processes for state creation is slightly different from that of
conventional constitution amendment.”

He said “it is very important that those agitating for
new states thoroughly understand the provisions of Section 8 (1) of the 1999
Constitution which spells out the requirements and processes for the task.
While state creation under the military was an event as states were decreed
into existence by fiat, state creation in a democracy, especially going by the
provisions of Section 8 (1) is a long and cumbersome process requiring the
inputs of every part of Nigeria.”

Ekweremadu said, “It is not an entirely National
Assembly affair, but a process that should in fact originate and be driven by
the people, local government councils, members of the State Assemblies, and
members of the National Assembly from the areas seeking to be created into new
states.”

Continuing, he said, “our role at the National Assembly
is to provide leadership, moderate the process, and ensure compliance with
legislative due process. For instance, the onus lies on the areas seeking new
states, not the National Assembly, to generate the requests and reach out to
other parts of Nigeria to see reason with them and support their aspirations.”

“A referendum is also required with the involvement of
the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC. But whereas the processes
are obviously cumbersome, it is certainly not an impossible task. All that is
needed is political maturity, consensus building, patriotism, enlightenment,
and sense of justice,” he stated.

In his address,
Governor Liyel Imoke of Cross River State represented by his Deputy, Mr. Efiok
Cobham said that the proposed new Constitution should consider critically
issues of restructuring the Nigeria federation.

Imoke said that as the country stands today, the centre
is too heavy, while the states instead of being seen as the federating unit it
is being seen as lower partner in the Nigeria project.

He noted that items listed in the exclusive list of the
constitution were far higher in number than those in the concurrent list,
adding that while exclusive list has 68 items, concurrent list has only 28
which he said had made the centre a sole proprietor.

Earlier,  Chairman
of the Constitution review for South-South zone and Senate leader, Chief Victor
Ndoma-Egba, SAN, assured that it was the intension of the National Assembly to
give the country a constitution that would be accepted by all.