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By Tracy Moses
The Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Benjamin Okezie Kalu, PhD, CFR, together with other prominent federal lawmakers, is set to meet with proponents of a proposed new state in the South East, as part of ongoing consultations aimed at ensuring balanced state representation across the federation.
The consultative meeting, slated for November 14, 2025, will hold in one of the South East state capitals. It is expected to bring together an array of key regional stakeholders, including members of the National Assembly, state governors, speakers and deputy speakers of state Houses of Assembly, ministers, and heads of federal agencies from the zone.
The agitation for the creation of an additional state in the South East has been a long-standing demand aimed at addressing the geopolitical imbalance in Nigeria’s state structure. The region currently has five states, Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, and Imo, making it the only geopolitical zone with fewer than six states.
Recall that ver the years, various administrations and constitutional review exercises have considered the call for an extra state from the region, but the proposal has yet to materialize due to the rigorous constitutional process required for state creation. According to Section 8 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), creating a new state requires approval by a two-thirds majority of members of both the National Assembly and the Houses of Assembly of the affected states, as well as endorsement by a simple majority in a referendum.
Kalu in a statement signed by Levinus Nwabughiogu, his Chief Press Secretary, said, the upcoming forum is designed to give advocates of the new state an opportunity to present their arguments, while allowing stakeholders to harmonize their views ahead of formal legislative consideration in the National Assembly.
The initiative follows a high-level meeting earlier in the week between the Deputy Speaker and the South East Caucus of the Senate, chaired by Senator Osita Isunaso. Lawmakers at the session agreed to pursue a unified regional position on the issue of state creation before it is presented for debate and voting in the federal legislature.
A similar consultative session had previously been held in the House of Representatives, where members resolved to extend the engagement to their Senate counterparts in order to build broader consensus across both chambers.
It will be recalled that during a recent retreat of the Joint Constitution Review Committee of the Senate and the House of Representatives, co-chaired by the Deputy Senate President, Senator Jubrin Barau, and Deputy Speaker Kalu, in Lagos, the committee endorsed the creation of an additional state in the South East to bring the region at par with other geopolitical zones in the country.