Nigeria’s cartographic distraction: Why state creation betrays a bleeding nation

Nigeria stands paralyzed by a trifecta of crises: hyperinflation at 34 per cent devouring wages, youth unemployment exceeding 33 per cent, and bandits transforming highways into mass graves. Yet in the hallowed chambers of the National Assembly, politicians are debating the creation of 31 new states – a territorial alchemy that would expand Nigeria to […]

Nigeria stands paralyzed by a trifecta of crises: hyperinflation at 34 per cent devouring wages, youth unemployment exceeding 33 per cent, and bandits transforming highways into mass graves. Yet in the hallowed chambers of the National Assembly, politicians are debating the creation of 31 new states – a territorial alchemy that would expand Nigeria to 67 entities. This obsession resurrects a military-era solution to a democratic-era catastrophe, ignoring the fiscal insanity of multiplying bureaucracies while 29 existing states survive on federal handouts for over 80% of their budgets. The proposal is not just tone-deaf; it is institutionalized betrayal.  

The economic case against state proliferation is unambiguous. Nigeria’s N80 trillion debt mountain already chokes development, yet adding 31 states would inflate governance costs by 86 per cent – draining N6.2 trillion annually from hospitals, schools, and security. Each new state demands parasitic layers: governors’ offices costing N25 billion yearly, assemblies gulping N15 billion, and judicial complexes consuming N10 billion. This occurs while oil-rich Bayelsa begs for bailouts and Katsina generates less internally than Lagos collects in parking fines. Proponents offer no revenue model beyond deepening Nigeria’s resource curse, ignoring how oil dependence murdered the North’s groundnut pyramids and the East’s palm oil plantations – regional powerhouses sacrificed at the altar of federal allocations.  

The social devastation of boundary redrawing is equally catastrophic. Historical wounds from past state creations still fester: the 1991 division of Enugu and Kogi stranded kinsmen in artificial territories, fueling land conflicts that claim lives yearly. Proposals like Apa State (carved from Benue’s blood-soaked farmlands) or Savannah State (in Borno’s Boko Haram heartland) would detonate violence in pressure cookers. At this moment, the Global Terrorism Index ranks Nigeria sixth worldwide, bandits sack whole villages in Zamfara, and farmers abandon fields in 26 states fearing kidnappers. Diverting police and military resources to boundary demarcation while terrorists expand territory isn’t misprioritisation – it is complicity in slaughter.  

Governance failures expose the debate’s rotten core. As lawmakers chase new fiefdoms, they actively strangulate Local Governments – Nigeria’s only true grassroots tier. In 35 per cent of LGAs, no elections have occurred since 2020. Governors install puppet administrators who steal federal allocations – over N5 trillion vanished this way between 2020-2024 – leaving rural clinics without drugs and roads collapsing into gullies. Creating new states would place another corrupt filter over these crippled LGAs, widening the chasm between power and people. Worse, it manufactures fresh corruption ecosystems: each state births 15,000–20,000 ghost worker slots, N500 billion in inflated contracts, and patronage networks for political thugs. As BusinessDay reported, proponents seek “personal empires to milk the treasury” while 29 states owe workers eight months’ salaries.  

History indicts this endeavour as anti-democratic and economically suicidal. Military dictators created 35 of Nigeria’s 36 states through decrees – Gowon’s 1967 division to fracture Biafra, Babangida’s 1987/1991 creations to reward cronies, Abacha’s 1996 expansion to buy loyalty. Democracy’s constitutional safeguards – Section 8’s requirement for two-thirds legislative approval, 24 state assembly endorsements, and local referendums – exist to prevent such reckless fragmentation. Northern senators have thrice blocked South-East statehood to protect their oil revenue share, revealing the zero-sum extortion underlying this theater. The development myth lies buried in outcomes: despite multiplying states from four regions to 36, life expectancy stagnates at 55 years, 75 million Nigerians scavenge in extreme poverty, and 12 million children haunt streets instead of classrooms.  

Nigerians have declared their verdict: 72 per cent reject new states in 2025 polls. Parents battling N30,000/month wages erased by food inflation demand nourishment – especially with rice consumption projected to double by 2035 as climate change shrinks harvests. Youth facing 33 per cent unemployment need factories, not filing cabinets in redundant bureaucracies. Communities where bandits levy taxes on villages crave police reform, not cartographic committees. Their wisdom is profound: governance quality, not territorial quantity, determines survival.  

The escape route demands radical restructuring, not fragmentation. First, emancipate local governments council through constitutional amendments guaranteeing direct federal funding, elected councils, and anti-graft audits – deploying N500 billion from state creation budgets to revive grassroots governance. Second, collapse 36 unviable states into six geopolitical zones with devolved powers over agriculture, security, and infrastructure – reviving the First Republic’s competitive regionalism that birthed groundnut pyramids and palm oil revolutions. Third, amputate federal bloat: eliminate the N400 billion Senate and merge duplicated ministries, saving N1.2 trillion yearly to build 40,000 clinics or train 200,000 community police officers.  

This state creation debate is more than distraction; it is active sabotage. The N6.2 trillion required for 31 new patronage pyramids could fund universal broadband to connect farmers to markets, mechanize agriculture to feed 200 million, or equip every primary school. True progress means burying the military’s cartographic colonialism and rebuilding governance from the soil up. As mothers deliver babies in candlelit wards and students learn under trees shredded by bullets, Nigerians issue a mandate to their leaders: fill our plates before redrawing maps. Secure our homes before carving fiefdoms. Only then might this bleeding nation rise.

 

Husaini mni wrote from Abuja