I READ The Guardian editorial opinion of Tuesday July 28, 2009 with some concern because it is not for nothing that the editorial opinion of your newspaper on burning national questions is considered pivotal and arguably the final word in resolving issues. That is why I as well as others of Anioma extraction felt it was important to share with your readers and the nation our perspective on the question of state creation.
The editorial notes the argument that states creation ushers in even development to all parts of the country moreover the concept of a national cake and a conclave of rats is cited as reason amongst others to doubt the motives of the promoters of new states.
What purpose, you ask, is served by the unending balkanisation of the country? I make haste to say that in the case of Anioma and a few other genuine cases, the matter goes beyond mere sharing of national cake or even development. It is at once a demand for equal treatment with other sub-nationalities in this nation and the protest against continued servitude and second class citizenship.
For the sake of brevity I will focus on the case for the creation of Anioma state. The demand for the state is the oldest in this country. The evolution and passion invested in the idea has passed on and increased from generation to generation. Indeed even the projected name Anioma has taken on a life of its own unlike most other state creation movements whose proposed name changes as the wind changes direction. Only the proposed Anioma has remained constant since it was first coined 50 years ago. The proposed boundary with neighbours has remained the same in the 50 years even in the face of attempts by neighbours to use the Anioma for their selfish expansionist purposes.
The homogenous language and cultures of the inhabitants of the proposed state has also remained constant these past 50 years. Even in the face of centrifugal pressure from the Igbo across the Niger and the Urhobo on our brothers in Ndokwa and Kwale. Above all, the people of the area that now wish to constitute the proposed state have found remarkable unity and unalloyed bonding from their shared experience of deprivation, want and humiliating marginalisation.
The civil war was a crossroad particularly for the Anioma. Linguistic affinity with the Igbo across the Niger and the resultant hostility from other sub-nationalities that made up the then Mid-west presented series of challenges and even threatened their very survival as human beings. No other explanation can be offered for the massacre of civilians in two or three major population centres in the Anioma area in the course of the war. The post civil war Mid-west region, Bendel state and now Delta state has only underscored the need to attain a modicum of freedom so that second class citizenship does not continue from generation to generation of the Anioma.
From this brief summary, it must be obvious to readers that in the case of the Anioma and possibly one or two others, the reasons proffered in your editorial opinion against states creation must be evaluated in the light of overwhelming factors in favour of the state creation exercise. Anioma's case is a matter of life and death. In the face of such extremities what do the Anioma care that the further balkanisation of Nigeria will make us less Nigerian. The previous exercises that benefited others left us more Nigerian and poorer in spirit and body. If we get a state, we like others before us, may well be less Nigerian but certainly richer in spirit and body. The argument against states creation that most are not viable, was not considered in previous exercises. There is no reason why it should be a deterrent now it is our turn; for what is good for the goose is as good for the gander. If it is possible to create Bayelsa State with less local government areas than the proposed Anioma, Zamfara State with less prospects of generating internal revenue than the proposed Anioma to mention only two instances, then why not Anioma State?
Yes what Nigeria needs is good governance at all levels but it is an accepted fact that this is largely non-existent at the moment. That did not prevent previous state creation exercises; why should it be a reason to deny Anioma, now it is our turn?
To your question whether we see states as agents of productivity or centres of consumption, I can answer for the Anioma that we see the proposed state as neither, rather we see the proposed state like the Jews in diaspora before 1948 saw the creation of Israel, the only means to exist with dignity and on equal terms with the rest of Nigeria, which you may answer, is already provided for in the fundamental objectives and directive principles of the 1999 Constitution which I beg to say are not justiciable.
I agree that a situation where 70 to 80 per cent of the nation's income is frittered away on personnel costs is unacceptable but the answer is to cut down the personnel first at the federal level (the main culprits) and not in denying the Anioma of the opportunity to escape bondage. Please let the legislators continue with the exercise. It may well turn out to be the only lasting achievement they record since the end of the military rule.
* Agbamuche, a legal practitioner, is the Owelle of Akwukwu-Igbo.
