Public affairs commentator and media entrepreneur, Atunyota Akpobome, also known as Alibaba, has said that some of Nigeria’s 36 states should be reclassified as local government areas.
The veteran comedian made this statement during an appearance on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily program on Tuesday.
He mentioned that certain states were established by the military to please certain commanders who were later appointed as administrators of those states.
Alibaba pointed out that sub-regional governments that struggle to generate enough revenue to sustain themselves and rely solely on monthly allocations from the Federal Government should be downgraded to local government areas.
When Nigeria gained independence from Britain in 1960, it initially had three regions – Northern, Western, and Eastern. The number increased to four with the addition of the Mid-Western region two years later.
Between 1967 and 1996, the military eliminated the regions and established 36 states along with the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja. There are 774 local government areas spread across these 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.
“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 problems in the state. Meanwhile, those same states have enough natural resources.”
He criticized the 1999 Constitution that was given to the country by the military regime of former Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar (Rtd), during the transition from military rule to democratic governance in May 1999.
