In an expected development following years of acrimony, the predominantly Christians, Non-Hausa\/Fulani Southern part of Kaduna state and its rival Northern Muslim Hausa\/Fulani dominated part of Northern Kaduna, on Wednesday agreed for the split of Kaduna State into two new states.
Speaking during the presentation and defence of their memos at the Senate ad-hoc Committee and the House of Reps Special Committee on the Review of the 1999 Constitution at the Hassan Katsina House, Kawo, Kaduna, both sides, infamous for incessant inter-ethnic and religious clashes for decades, said creating new states from the present Kaduna State will go a long way at solving the bloody violence that seemed to defy solution.
The President of the Southern Kaduna Peoples Union (SOKAPU), Hon. Jonathan Asake, who defended the memo of Southern Kaduna people said: \u201cThe wish of Southern Kaduna is to have a brand new constitution, not an amended one,\u201d he said.
\u201cBut in the absence of that, we are here to make our inputs as a people who have suffered suppression and oppression for a long time,\u201d he said.
\u201cSouthern Kaduna is made up of 67 ethnic nationalities spread in 13 of the 23 Local Government Areas (LGAs) of Kaduna state. It has a land mass of 26,000kmsq with an estimated population of 5.1 million. We are endowed with an educated population and with abundant natural resources,\u201d he said.
\u201cOur land size is greater than that of Kano state which has a land mass of 20,000kmsq. Yet Kano is a state of its own with 44 LGAs. Our population is greater than 21 other states of the federation,\u201d he went on. \u201cWe are demanding for the amendment of the provision of section 8 of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria which makes it almost an impossible task for the creation of a new state,\u201d he insisted.
\u201cWe have been demanding for a state of our own for over thirty years and Gurara state was among the 18 states proposed in the 2014 Confab report,\u201d he said.
\u201cWe are demanding for the creation of the Gurara state after the amendment. This will help in solving the incessant conflicts between our people and the other divide,\u201d he said.
SOKAPU also asked for the removal of the Land Use Act from the Constitution and its amendment as a law, so that communities and families can have larger control of the ancestral lands.
\u201cWe stand by all the 2014 confab report which had captured most of our demands.
In the same vein, the the Northern part of Kaduna state, under the aegis of Kaduna Development Elders Initiatives submitted a memo signed by the Senators Representing Kaduna North Senatorial Zone, Sen. Sulieman Abdu Kwari; the Senator Representing Kaduna Central Senatorial zone, Senator Uba Sani; all the House of Reps members from the Northern Part of Kaduna; all members of Kaduna state house of Assembly from northern part of Kaduna their Chairmen of LGAs and Councillors.
Defending the memo of the group, Abdulkadir Ahmed said, \u201cwe are canvassing for the creation of New Kaduna state from the present Kaduna state and we want the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria amended to make this possible.\u201d
\u201cKaduna South has been complaining of marginalisation ever since, even though Chiefdoms have been given to them and they occupy 60% of the workforce of Kaduna state,\u201d he added.
\u201cLet the state be split and if they are asking for Gurara state, let them have it,\u201d he said.
\u201cThis will solve all the crises we have been having in this state,\u201d he added.
“On our part, we are asking for the creation of ‘New Kaduna State’, which will include Kaduna North and Kaduna Central Senatorial zones,” he said.
\u201cBut there should be a referendum for each section of the state to decide on where it wants to belong,\u201d he added.
Governor Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna State, who declared the meeting open, also asked for true Federalism, State Police and Financial Autonomy to Local Government Councils.
The Chairman of the Committee, Senator Kabiru Gaya from Kano State, in his opening remarks assured all that each of the memos will be well looked into and submitted to the National Assembly for further actions.
Many groups and individuals also submitted memos as the sitting continues till Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In an expected development following years of acrimony, the predominantly Christians, Non-Hausa\/Fulani Southern part of Kaduna state and its rival Northern Muslim Hausa\/Fulani dominated part of Northern Kaduna, on Wednesday agreed for the split of Kaduna State into two new states. Speaking during the presentation and defence of their memos at the Senate ad-hoc Committee […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":27586,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[392,3427,3428],"class_list":["post-33638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-constitution","tag-gurara","tag-new-kaduna"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33638\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}