STAKEHOLDERS INTENSIFY CLAMOUR FOR IBADAN STATE

Stakeholders on Friday intensified their call for the creation of Ibadan State from the present Oyo State.

The stakeholders spoke at a conference organised by the Central Council of Ibadan Indigenes in conjunction with the Jericho Businessmen Club held on Ibadan as part of activities marking the Ibadan Week 2010.

In his lecture entitled, ‘From a mere settlement to a state: A possible epoch for Ibadan or a pipe dream,’ the Chairman, Committee for the Creation of Ibadan State, Chief Adebayo Oyero, said there were many pointers to the fact that, if created, Ibadan State would be viable.

Oyero said this was based on its population, available infrastructure, manpower and economic and agricultural viability.

In his address, another stakeholder, Dr. Abayomi Olanipekun, said the agitation for state creation was as old as the history of Nigeria.

Abayomi, an Ibadan-based lawyer, said such agitations had been mainly for self-preservation, recognition, enhancement of sectional and ethnic values, custom, language and pride, among others.

He said the call for Ibadan state was imperative, noting that the need of the Ibadan people to preserve their identity, pride, heritage, culture and values could only be properly articulated and realised within a state of their own.

Dr. K.T. Gbadamosi of the Department of Geography and Regional Planning, Olabisi Onabanjo University also argued that there was abundant evidence in support of the creation of Ibadan State.
He added that the proposed state would be viable when its resources and its level of infrastructural development were put into consideration. Other speakers such as Dr. Gani Adeniran of the Department of Veterinary Pathology, University of Ibadan and the President, JBC, Chief Olutunde Aboderin, said the creation of Ibadan State could be realised through the cooperation of all Ibadan indigenes.
Stressing that the creation of Ibadan State was long overdue, the chairman of the event, Chief Femi Lanlehin, traced the central role the city had played in regional and national politics since the First Republic. Lanlehin, who is a governorship aspirant in the Action Congress of Nigeria in Oyo State, added that Enugu and Kaduna, which used to be regional capitals, had since become full-fledged states.
He pointed out that Ibadan possessed adequate natural and human resources to be a state. Lanlehin recalled that it was the Ibadan Peoples Party that helped Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s Action Group to form the government during the 1951 Western Region House of Assembly election through the formation of a coalition.

He said the IPP’s six seats increased the AG’s figure to 31, enabling it to beat the National Council for Nigeria and Cameroons, which had secured 30.