THE Okun Development Association (ODA), the umbrella socio-cultural body of the minority Yoruba speaking people of Kogi State, have intensified its demand for a new state to be called Okun State.
The proposed state is to comprise the Okun speaking communities in the present Ekiti and Kwara states. The proposed state if created is all part of the desire of the minority group to be merged with the South West geo-political zone.
At the Association’s end of year meeting, the President, Ambassador Babatunde Paul Fadumiyo, said that the proposal had been addressed to the National Assembly in view of the ongoing review of the 1999 Constitution.
At the annual congress held at the Saint Augustine’s College, Kabba, the Association adopted the articulated Okun position on the proposal.
Fadumiyo hinted that “the creation of an Okun State or a new state where Okunland will be an equal stakeholder or partner,” is uppermost in the mind of every Okun man or woman. His declaration sounded the death knell to the extant agreement involving the minorities scattered over West and Central Senatorial Districts to constitute themselves into Kabba State, fashioned after the old Kabba Province.
The Chairman of the ODA committee set up to review the draft memorandum to the National Assembly Committee on the Review of the Constitution, Chief J.O. Yusuf, affirmed that the area demanded in its memorandum, among other things, “for an appropriate state structure and geo-political relocation that shall facilitate our cultural advancement and socio-political development.
Meanwhile, Senator Smart Adeyemi (Kogi West) said that the agitation for Okun State was in order and a legitimate aspiration of the people. He blamed military’s incursion into politics for the miscarriage of justice during the creation of states.
He stated: “This is what threw many people into wrong places and it is time citizens corrected the ‘political demarcation’ created among common tribes and people.
“When we start the review of the 1999 Constitution, state creation and councils would feature. Democracy is all about good governance and freedom. Very soon, people would determine where they would be. You will determine the state you want to be, you will determine what you want.”
Yusuf continued: “As a people living in Nigeria and believing in her unity and cooperate existence, we affirm our inalienable right to self determination, to associate and to dissociate as we find appropriate. As far as the Okun people are concerned, our political right has not been recognised and granted to us. During the 1959 Constitutional Conference in London, we made this demand, we even went to the extent of going for referendum but the will of majority of our people was suppressed. The result of the referendum was subverted and we have since been kept in bondage. The British colonial rule did not ask the Okun people whether they wanted to be where they were. It carved them with the Northern Protectorate and the Colony of Lagos in 1914 to form what is today called Nigeria.
“We the Okun people are therefore asking that it this our inalienable right to self-determination be recognised. We should henceforth be allowed to determine whom we want to live with, where we want to be; whether we want to be in Kogi with our neighbours, the Igala and the Ebira or whether we want to go back to our kith and kin, the Yoruba, in the South West geopolitical zone. Without any equivocation, we want to be constituted into with an organic government. This will allow us to have a control over our affairs; it will allow us to develop at our own pace without hindrance. Therefore we are demanding for a political unit to be known and called Okun State (and) be relocated to South West where we share common nationality and development aspirations.”
Meanwhile, the two year old negotiations among the various ethnic groups aimed to unbundle the present state structure that would see Kogi wiped out while the minorities bond into one unit, might have broken down with the Ebira and Okun axes parting ways.
Kabba State was expected to include Ebira, Okun, Kakanda, Oworo, Ganagana, Nupe, Egbura Koto, Kupa and Bassa-Nge, among others. Already, the majority group, the Igala in Kogi East, has a sustained movement for the creation of Okura State.
Bassa Council, the sole non-Igala speaking minority group in Kogi East was expected to write to the National Assembly to choose where to pitch their tent between the two proposed new states.
The tripartite agreement involving Okun, Lokoja/Kotonkarfe and Ebira was said to have collapsed following the decision by the Ebira to opt out of the agitation for Kabba State on the basis that the name and configuration of the third senatorial district to be added to the existing two, did not favour the Ebira. Indications emerged that the decision by the Yoruba to demand for an Okun State, an apparent departure from the initial agitation for Kabba State to comprise Kogi West and the Ebira in Central Senatorial District, followed the collapse of talks in the camp of the minorities.
The agreement jointly signed by Okun, Lokoja/Kotonkarfe and Ebira leaders in September 2010, included that the name of the proposed new state shall be Kabba, with headquarters in Lokoja; it shall consist of three senatorial districts made up of the former Kabba Division, Igbira Division and Kwara Division, 24 councils to be shared equally and power rotation. The agreement was signed by the Ohinoyi of Ebiraland, King Ado Ibrahim and the Obaro of Kabba, Oba Michael Olobayo, Chairmen of the Ebira and Okun Traditional Councils respectively, the Maigari of Lokoja, Dr Muhammadu Kabir Maikarfi and six others.
Subsequently, a letter was written to the former governor, Ibrahim Idris informing him of the decision of the minorities to constitute themselves into a state of their own to be called “Kabba State.”
However, talks were said to have broken down following a letter from the Ohinoyi of Ebiraland to the Obaro of Kabba listing “grey areas” in the agreement. The Ohinoyi, in the letter made available to The Guardian, while noting that what was relevant to the agreement on the proposed state is west and central senatorial districts said the doctrine of old Kabba, Ebira and Kotonkarfe Divisions had “expired into the past.” He expressed fears that the issue of the proposed state and the configuration of senatorial districts were contentious. The Ebira paramount ruler advanced in the letter “strong, unexpected and concerted” opposition by his people to the state being named Kabba State and the configuration of the senatorial districts.
“The issue of (the) name of the proposed state and the configuration of the senatorial district remain contentious. The people of central senatorial district are adamant in their opposition to the state being named Kabba but resolved to retain the name Kogi. Similarly, a majority of the people in the central believe that the doctrine of old Kabba Divisions, Ebira Division and Kotonkarfe Division has no current relevance, and therefore cannot form the basis for creating the new senatorial district. The relevant points today are central and west senatorial districts. Therefore, the two senatorial districts concerned must have a stake or share in the new senatorial district to be created.
“The Central is unequivocal in its demand that it should contribute the present Adavi and Okene councils while West should contribute Lokoja and Kotonkarfe councils to form the new senatorial district. These four councils are geographically and culturally contagious and I believe this proposal is in consonance with the principle of fairness and justice,” he said.
Obaro of Kabba, while describing Ohinoyi’s letter as “remarkable,” expressed worries that the objection from Ohinoyi’s subjects was coming after months of “careful negotiations” and ratification of agreement by representatives of the three senatorial districts on the proposed state, which the Ohinoyi was privy to. He lamented that a memorandum had been prepared on the basis of the signed agreement and was ready for submission to the National Assembly before the Ebira people raised their objection.
Opposing Ohinoyi’s proposal to merge Lokoja/Kotonkarfe presently part of Kogi West with Adavi/Okene presently part of Kogi Central to form the third senatorial district in the proposed state, the Obaro stated that the proposal ignored the facts of history and ethnography as the two councils (Lokoja and Kotonkarfe) have stayed together administratively and politically since the creation of Nigeria, a conclave of many but small ethnic groups who have developed common social and political psychology.
He described the Lokoja-Kotonkarfe axis as a unique and separate political grouping whose essence will be negated if Adavi and Okene councils are added to them as a senatorial district.
He noted that the tone and spirit of the letter “betrayed a desire for conquest and expansionism” and said that the objection to the name “Kabba” smacks of hatred and a sign that the Ebira counterparts had forgotten the reason behind the agitation.
According to him, “we were forced to make this demand because in the present state there is imbalance. Therefore, it has become imperative for us to demand a new state out of the present one so that individuals and groups will be freed and become free; alienation will end and all will feel they belong to the state, ipso facto to Nigeria and rapid social transformation will follow…
“It should be noted that the process had in the last few months gone from the technical committee stage to the stakeholders forum, which you headed and from there to the implementation committee on which the three senatorial districts are represented by some of their best. The Okun people are taken aback that these grey areas were not pointed out until the implementation committee had almost finished its work. Raising the objections at this latter stage of the implementation of the tripartite agreement could have the effect of derailing, God forbid, the valiant efforts which you and the rest of us have put into this worthy cause.”
GuardianNG
June 11, 2012, 06:25:31 PM