North war: North, South, Middle-Belt in crucial meetings

 

•Why North is angry •Ibadan State likely

AHEAD of the imminent showdown at the National Conference on Monday between Northern and Southern delegates over the approved new states and delisting of local governments from the constitution, crucial meetings have been fixed for today in Abuja by gladiators in the face-off.

Core North delegates are kicking over the approval of an extra state for the South-East and another 17 for the six geo-political zones, with each of them, primed to have nine each at the end of the day, totaling 54.

The agitators are also kicking against the ratification of the delisting of the existing 774 local governments from the constitution.

They planned to walk out of the conference tomorrow if the decisions taken last Thursday are not reversed.

The move by the core North delegates and the disapproval of same by the Middle-Belt delegates, has sparked a series of crucial strategy meetings in Abuja by various ethnic groupings participating in the conference.

Sunday Tribune can reveal that the Middle-Belt delegates, who have reportedly aligned with the Southern delegates on the vexed issues, would be meeting by 8 p.m. tonight.

At the same time, South-West delegates would also be holding a crucial meeting in Abuja.

A delegate from the South-West who is a prominent lawyer confirmed the meeting.

Another meeting, expected to have all the delegates from the South-South, South-East, South-West and North-Central, is scheduled for 9.30 pm.

Northern delegates have also fixed their meeting for 9.30pm, with delegates from the North-Central, expected to be in attendance.

With the bilateral meeting with Southern delegates clashing with the Northern delegates’, the North-Central delegates would have to make a choice between attending the bilateral meeting with their Southern counterpart or joining their Northern kith.

A North-Central delegate told the Sunday Tribune that it would be necessary to attend all the meetings, despite the Middle-Belt’s disagreement with the position of the core North.

Why core North is angry

Sunday Tribune also gathered that the core North delegates are actually angry because they felt the delisting of the local governments from the constitution, which would automatically stop direct allocation from the federation account, was a way of further crippling the region economically.

A delegate in the know told the Sunday Tribune that the numerical advantage the core North has been enjoying regarding constitutional local governments and the huge revenue accruable to the office holders through it, is not something the zone wanted to lose in a hurry.

He pointed out that many delegates from the North had told him that the delisting was designed to economically cripple the zone, even after political power had been taken away from it.

The delegate, who is very close to Northern delegates but from the South, pointed out that the old Kano State alone, from where Jigawa was carved out, now has 71 local government when Lagos State that is thought to be bigger in population has 20 constitutionally-recognised local governments.

“Our friends on the other side [core North] are just using the state creation as a facade. Their real anger is about throwing local government creation wide open, freeing states to create as many as they want, provided the entire nation would not have to finance the new councils as we currently do with those listed in the constitution. Even when there is no population growth to justify increment, more councils, listed in the constitution would mean more money. But we will sort things out,” the source said.

Ibadan State likely

It was also learnt that out of the two yet-to-be-filled new state slots for the South-West, Ibadan State might still emerge, despite the approval for New Oyo State.

One of those pushing for the creation of Ibadan State disclosed that it should just be natural that Ibadan State should be among the new states, considering that the current Oyo State is about eight times the size of Ekiti State and almost one-third of the entire Yoruba land.

Copyright – Tribune

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North war: North, South, Middle-Belt in crucial meetings