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A coalition of Igbo elders has thrown its weight behind the creation of Anioma State, framing the long-running demand as an overdue correction to a federal structure they say has marginalised a people whose identity, language and history place them firmly within the Igbo nation despite decades of administrative separation.
The United Igbo Elders Council, UNIEC Worldwide, issued a statement this week calling the proposed state not a political favour but what it described as a right long denied — and warning the Tinubu administration that history would not excuse procedural delay when the moral and legislative foundations for action were already in place.
“The creation of Anioma State is a litmus test of Nigeria’s sincerity about justice, equity, and true federalism,” the council said in a statement signed by its Director General, Justice Alpha Ikpeama, and National Director of Media and Publicity, Professor Obasi Igwe. “To ignore this demand any longer is to perpetuate a quiet injustice.”
The statement arrives as the National Assembly’s engagement with the Anioma question has gained fresh momentum, driven in part by Senate President Godswill Akpabio and with particular force from Senator Ned Nwoko, whose advocacy for the new state has given the legislative conversation an urgency it previously lacked. UNIEC described the reported overwhelming senatorial backing as something deeper than procedural consensus — a signal, it said, of national awakening rather than routine constitutional exercise.
The case for Anioma State rests on a grievance that has accumulated across decades. The Anioma people — occupying the western bank of the Niger River in what is currently Delta State — identify culturally, linguistically and historically with the Igbo, yet have found themselves administered within a state whose dominant identity, politics and resource flows have not consistently served their developmental interests. Their demand for a distinct federating unit is not new. What appears to have changed is the legislative atmosphere around it.
UNIEC was careful to frame the demand in terms that address the standard objections to state creation exercises in Nigeria, where the multiplication of states has often been criticised as a patronage mechanism rather than a genuine response to administrative need. The elders argued that the Anioma case is categorically different — rooted in identity and structural equity rather than political calculation. “Their call for a distinct federating unit is not rooted in division, but in dignity,” the statement said. “Not in exclusion, but in inclusion.”
Read also: President Tinubu Supports Creation Of Anioma State – Ned Nwoko
The proposed configuration would designate Asaba as the capital of the new Anioma State while Warri would serve as capital of a restructured Delta State. UNIEC described the arrangement as strategically sound and symbolically meaningful — Asaba representing the cultural and political heartbeat of Anioma identity, Warri reflecting industrial and economic capacity with the infrastructure to sustain administrative leadership.
The council rejected any framing of the split as zero-sum, arguing instead that the arrangement models precisely the balance between identity and efficiency that Nigerian federalism has consistently struggled to achieve.
The danger of delay, the statement argued, is not merely administrative but psychological and political. Nigeria has a documented pattern of acknowledging legitimate demands for restructuring and then routing them into committees, consultations and constitutional processes that stretch indefinitely without resolution. Each iteration of that pattern, UNIEC said, deepens distrust and reinforces the perception that some communities must perpetually negotiate for recognition that others simply inherit. “Every delay deepens distrust. Every hesitation reinforces the perception that some regions must perpetually negotiate for recognition, while others take it for granted.”
Read also: Anioma Leaders Reject Proposal For Inclusion In South-East
The council’s message to President Tinubu was direct. The constitutional process must be followed, it acknowledged, but the constitution must not be deployed as an instrument of delay. Legality and transparency are necessary — but so is urgency, and the two are not incompatible. “History will not remember procedural delays. It will remember courage or the lack of it.”
UNIEC situated the Anioma question within a frame larger than any single state or region, arguing that its resolution speaks to whether Nigeria is capable of evolving into a federation that genuinely works for all its constituent peoples. “It is about whether Nigeria is prepared to evolve into a federation that works for all its people, or remain trapped in a structure that serves only a few,” the statement said.
The claim that the issue is bigger than Delta State, bigger than the South-South, bigger even than the South-East, is a rhetorical reach but not an incoherent one. State creation exercises in Nigeria have always been as much about the principles they establish as the territories they demarcate. A federal government that responds to a well-documented, historically grounded demand with action sends a different message about the nature of the federation than one that responds with another round of committee work.
