A public affairs commentator and media entrepreneur commonly known as Alibaba, Atunyota Akpobome, suggests that certain states established during the military regime should be reclassified as local government areas.
The veteran comedian, appearing as a guest on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily program on Tuesday, pointed out that some of the 36 states in the Federation were established by the military to placate certain commanders who were subsequently deployed to govern these states.
Alibaba emphasized that regions incapable of generating sufficient revenue to sustain themselves, relying solely on monthly allocations from the Federal Government, should be reclassified as local government areas.
At Nigeria’s independence from Britain in 1960, the country comprised three regions—Northern, Western, and Eastern—which later expanded to four with the addition of the Mid-Western region two years later.
However, between 1967 and 1996, the military created 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, out of the existing structure. There are currently 774 local government areas distributed across the 36 states.
Alibaba said, “Some states were created just to appease some military officers. ‘Oh, this guy is a senior military officer, he comes from this area, we can’t give him a state now, let’s just create a state and take care of those people’.
“Or the issue of: We want to create four states in the north, let’s just balance it with some states in the south so that it will look deliberate because some of the states that were created needed to be local governments.
“Up till now, we have states that if they do not get federal allocations for three months, there will be problem in the state. Meanwhile, those same states have enough natural resources.”
The social commentator highlighted that Nigeria’s numerous challenges began when the federal military government mandated the regions and states to pool all their finances into the national treasury and subsequently distributed funds to them based on decisions made by the Federal Account Allocation Committee (FAAC).
He also criticized the 1999 Constitution inherited by the country from the military administration of former Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar (retired), during the transition from military rule to democratic governance in May 1999.
Alibaba said, “Our constitution is the biggest problem we hve now; it’s an anomaly, it’s not actually a constitution; it’s something that some people drafted, got some lawyers to knock it together because the constitution doesn’t speak to the growth and national development of our country.
“The truth is if you want this country to grow, let each state generate its own revenue. The Federal Government can assist them if they want to but the funds and revenue that comes from certain states should not be shared to every other person.”