Former Information Minister, Sam Oyovbaire, has advised Nigerians to stop further agitations for new states, saying that it was “currently constitutionally difficult for states to be created’’.

Oyovbaire made the call last Friday, in Asaba, Delta State,  at a public lecture on “Agitation for State Creation and the Future of the Nigerian State.’’

The lecture was organised by the Delta State government as part of the activities marking the 20th anniversary of the state.

Oyovbaire said that the creation of more states was not certainly the solution of all the problems of democracy and development of the country.

He said that rather than usher in opportunities and development, new states would liberate new forces and raise more challenges and issues.

The former minister noted that no new state, local government or even political wards, which were constitutionally acknowledged by the Nigerian state, had ever been created in a democracy.

He said the creation of Midwest in 1963 was propelled by superior federal support for partisan agenda and it also became an element in the national crises of 1964-1965.

Oyovbaire noted that after 1967, when Gen. Yakubu Gowon’s regime equalised the North-South divide, the 1976 re-arrangement of the states to 19 by Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo, reintroduced the ethos of dominance in the ratio of 10 states in the North and nine in the South.

He also said that in 1987, when the Ibrahim Babangida administration added two new states, the inequality in number of states between the North and the South was sustained with North having 11 and the South 10.

“And, in 1996, which was the last exercise in state creation, Gen. Sani Abacha increased the number to 36 states, 19 for the North and 17 for the South and that meant that the inequality has not only persisted but also entrenched,” Oyovbaire said.

He expressed regret that states, when created had been converted into new locations for expansion of the elite class and the corresponding expansion of the poverty classes in the country.

“It is for this reason that critics of state creation have tended to equate the exercise of creating states with the urge for corruption,’’ the former minister said.

Hesaid that rather than agitate for more states, Nigerians should strive to tackle the huge governance problems and challenges likely to threaten governments and regimes.

Oyovbaire listed the challenges to include the collapse of basic physical, human and social infrastructure with the corresponding increase in crime, criminality, gross pent-up anger, institutional extortion and regime-cum-leadership alienation.