Abia State Governor, Alex Otti, has received commendation for his courageous stance on the ongoing debate over state creation in Nigeria.
Otti, during a recent constitution review meeting for Imo and Abia states in Owerri, cautioned that creating additional states without establishing the economic infrastructure to sustain existing ones could lay “the foundation for further division and dichotomy that could impact our body polity negatively, especially at a time we should be saddled with the responsibility of trying to navigate through our economic challenges as a nation.”
In his view, the push for more states amounts to expanding a flawed structure rather than fixing it.
An editorial by Punch Newspaper, dated July 31, 2025, hailed this standpoint as a hallmark of leadership.
“This is leadership! This is courage! Other Nigerian leaders must follow this example,” the national daily stated.
But Otti’s position has also been misunderstood in some quarters, prompting the governor to issue a clarification.
The Abia governor’s media aide, Ferdinand Ekeoma, explained that Otti is not opposed to the creation of a sixth state in the South East, which is the only geopolitical zone with just five states.
According to Ekeoma, his boss only opposed the blanket creation of new states across the country.
“Governor Otti’s position over the years on the creation of additional states in Nigeria hasn’t changed and will not change. His position is that the Country doesn’t require additional States, especially when most of the already existing states lack the viability for economic self-sustainability. In his seminal works over the years, he had advocated a six-regional structure for the country, which would support his advocacy for reducing the cost of governance.
“However, Governor Otti maintains that since at the moment one geopolitical zone in the North has as much as 7 States, while others have 6 each, except the SouthEast that has 5, there could be an additional State for the South East to balance the disequilibrium, but not the creation of new states across the six geopolitical zones
“It’s important to state that Governor Otti is not a man who is easily swayed to the wrong side of the pendulum when a critical issue that requires deep thinking driven by altruism is on the table,” the governor’s media aide added.
The National Assembly is currently considering bills for 31 new states, which, if passed and signed into law, would balloon the country’s total number of states to 67. The South-East has five of the bills.
But Punch, in the editorial, aligned with Governor Otti.
The newspaper called the push for more states “misguided and atavistic,” in the face of mounting public debt, underdevelopment, and a bloated bureaucracy across the federation.
It traced Nigeria’s shift from a productive federal structure of four regions in the First Republic to its present rent-seeking model. The editorial blamed state proliferation for worsening inefficiencies and corruption.
Against this backdrop, Punch argued that Governor Otti’s position reflects true federalist principles of “well-governed, autonomous, and competitive states” and urged the National Assembly to abandon the “impractical and unreasonable” project it has embarked on.
Meanwhile, besides the stance on state creation, Governor Otti has also earned praise for the transformative potential of his leadership in Abia State.
Public commentator, Sam Amadi, in a recent Facebook post, lauded Otti’s appointment of Dr. Friday Ohuche as Chief Economic Adviser, calling it “another of those remarkable appointments.”
Ohuche, a seasoned economist who has worked with the Central Bank of Nigeria, the International Monetary Fund, and the African Development Bank, recently joined Otti’s team to drive Abia’s rebirth.
Quoting Amadi, “There is no doubt that the vision and commitment at work in Abia is getting close to that of our heroes and mentors, Dr. M.I. Okpara, Dr. Nnana Ukegbu and Dr. Sam Mbakwe. Southeast is getting it right, one state at a time. Great days are ahead in Abia State. I now wish I am from Abia.”
