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The Senate
yesterday denied doing any selective work in favour of certain
proposals for state creation submitted to it by people agitating for
new states.

The senate
spokesman, Ayogu Eze, on Thursday in Abuja, denied allegations that the
senators have shortlisted a list of new states which they intend to
rubber-stamp during the state creation exercise.

“There is no list
of states to be created that has been drawn by the national assembly,”
he said. “That matter is not being considered right now but we hope
that we will consider it in the life of this sixth national assembly.”
He added that currently, the lawmakers are only receiving requests and
collating such requests and that the issue of state creation has been
relegated until the constitution review exercise is finished.

“We don’t have any
reason whatsoever at this stage to eliminate any request or to include
any request because we have not started the consideration of any
request,” he said.

Mr Eze said all the
requests for creation of states are with the senate’s 44-member ad hoc
committee on the alteration of the constitution, which would bring out
criteria for selection of the states to be created – in accordance with
section 9 of the constitution – “when the time comes.”

“All the requests
that have been received are with us, we have not drawn up any list, we
have not thrown away any request, and we have not taken any request
onboard. All of them are intact as they have been made,” he said.

He insisted that
the state creation exercise will follow the same pattern with that of
the constitution alteration, as outlined in section 8 and 9 of the
constitution. He added that it is through such a process that the
lawmakers will determine which states would be created, depending on
the mood of the public.

Altruistic lawmakers

He also added that
the insistence of the lawmakers that the president need not sign an
amendment to the constitution before it becomes effective is not an
“ego trip,” but a necessary argument that will benefit the constitution
in the end.

He also defended
the ongoing amendment to the 2010 electoral act, part of which seeks to
make the lawmakers members of the National Executive Committees (NEC)
of their various parties.

“We are not making laws for ourselves because we are not going to
stay in the national assembly forever,” he argued. “We think that if
you pull in the representatives of the people into the decision making
bodies of the parties, we are making it more democratic; we are
bringing in more voices, and views; we are enlarging the political
space within the parties and increasing the participation.” He added
that the amendment is not strange, considering that only a few parties
in Nigeria do not have all their national assembly lawmakers as members
of the NEC.