S’East traditional rulers push for 2 more states
By Kingsley Okoye /Emmanuel Jonathan
The Council of Traditional Rulers in the South-East has appealed to President Bola Tinubu and the National Assembly to consider the request for the creation of two additional states in the zone.
Speaking on Sunday in Abuja when he appeared on the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Forum, its Chairman, Chief Samuel Asadu, said the request was part of the demands the traditional council agreed to pursue at its last meeting.
According to him, the request for additional two states is to address the imbalance in the number of states in the six geopolitical zones.
“At the meeting, the traditional rulers agreed to accept any state created from any part of the eastern states.
“We are united in this struggle. We have five states in the South-East. There are zones that have seven. Some have six. So, we need to have two more states to be even.
“But whatever we get, we thank the President. We are at his mercy and God bless him for that.
“So, when the state is given to us, we will endorse it. It does not matter where it comes from, it does not matter whose lawmaker sponsored the bill.”
On the clamour for constitutional roles for traditional institutions, Asadu said that the traditional rulers were very experienced in all spheres and should be challenged with some statutory roles.
“We want to have some constitutional relevance, some constitutional powers.
“The statutory monthly allocation of five per cent from funds released to Local Governments is not given to traditional rulers in the states.
“The states don’t release the money.
“Traditional rulers play an important role in communicating government policies and programmes to members of the community.
“What that means is that they must be supported to do so. They need financial backing to handle these tasks. No one should pretend about that,” he said.
Edited by Sadiya Hamza
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