An establishment bill for Ijebu State was raised at the National Assembly recently, bringing a decades-long hankering of the million-strong Ijebu tribal stock closer to fruition.
PEOPLE’S GAZETTE
President Bola Tinubu has given the Awujale of Ijebuland, Sikiru Adetona, his strongest assurances that he will endorse the creation of Ijebu State as a carve-out from Ogun State, dismissing backlash about its viability in light of Nigeria’s raging economic woes, Peoples Gazette can report.
The president received the revered traditional ruler at his Bourdillon residence on January 5 and promised his guest that he won’t withhold support for the proposed state just northeast of Lagos, sources familiar with the details told The Gazette under anonymity to discuss privileged conversations.
At the meeting, Mr Adetona lamented how Ijebu remained the only province from the colonial era not to have its own state, decades after its erstwhile peers like Oyo and Sokoto provinces had been subdivided into multiple functioning states, our sources said.
“The president didn’t allow Awujale to overflog the matter before acquiescing,” one of our sources said out of Abuja. It was the first time Mr Tinubu would clearly telegraph his position on the proposed state, although it remained unclear where he would land on other states under consideration before the parliament. The meeting mentioned Anioma, out of Delta, among potential new states, which lawmakers are discussing as part of another amendment to the 1999 Constitution.
Presidential spokespersons declined to go on record about the meeting, citing its implications for proponents of other new states across the country, who might view the president’s meeting as unduly exclusionary.
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