President Bola Tinubu has given the Awujale of Ijebuland, Sikiru Adetona, his strongest assurances that he will endorse the creation of Ijebu State as a carve-out from Ogun State, dismissing backlash about its viability in light of Nigeria’s raging economic woes, Peoples Gazette can report.

The president received the revered traditional ruler at his Bourdillon residence on January 5 and promised his guest that he won’t withhold support for the proposed state just northeast of Lagos, sources familiar with the details told The Gazette under anonymity to discuss privileged conversations. 

At the meeting, Mr Adetona lamented how Ijebu remained the only province from the colonial era not to have its own state, decades after its erstwhile peers like Oyo and Sokoto provinces had been subdivided into multiple functioning states, our sources said. 

“The president didn’t allow Awujale to overflog the matter before acquiescing,” one of our sources said out of Abuja. It was the first time Mr Tinubu would clearly telegraph his position on the proposed state, although it remained unclear where he would land on other states under consideration before the parliament. The meeting mentioned Anioma, out of Delta, among potential new states, which lawmakers are discussing as part of another amendment to the 1999 Constitution. 

Presidential spokespersons declined to go on record about the meeting, citing its implications for proponents of other new states across the country, who might view the president’s meeting as unduly exclusionary. 

An establishment bill for Ijebu State was introduced to the National Assembly in November 2024 when Senator Gbenga Daniel of Ogun East sponsored it, bringing a decades-long hankering of the million-strong Ijebu tribal stock closer to realisation. Mr Daniel, a former governor of Ogun, conveyed agitations of his kinspeople for an independent state that can sustain itself upon excision from Ogun State to fellow legislators. Mr Daniel sought an alteration of the nation’s constitution to allow the creation of Ijebu State.

Senate President Godswill Akpabio then advanced the bill—titled the “Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (Sixth Alteration) Bill, 2024 (Creation of Ijebu State)—and it is now advancing through legislative stages. Several other states are also being discussed to expand Nigeria’s federating units from the current 36 states to as many as 56, meaning up to 20 new states 

But some lawmakers and everyday Nigerians have slammed the bill as ill-timed and questioned its value at a time of endemic poverty, chronic inflation, crushing debts, moribund power infrastructure and insecurity.

Critics also said Mr Tinubu was trying to expand Nigeria’s states from 36 because he assumed new states would feel liberated and easily back him for a second term—although it remained unlikely new states would be created before the 2027 elections. Concerns were also raised about how protracted crises may break out among competing interests even within a newly formed state.

However, during the meeting, Mr Adetona urged the president to discount those concerns, insisting that a new Ijebu State would accelerate the development of its constituent units through internally generated revenue and statutory federal allocations.

In December 2024, Mr Adetona, with the help of the Akarigbo of Remo, Adewale Ajayi, hosted traditional rulers and prominent indigenes of the Ijebu province to work out the modalities for the creation of Ijebu State.

These include a suitable state capital, an appropriate and equitable number of local government areas, senatorial districts, federal constituencies and other issues. 

Mr Adetona said Ijebu province was “economically-viable” and well-positioned for independence, making boast of the region’s vast swathes of land and infrastructure, from an industrial estate to an international airport still under construction.

“ljebu province is economically viable and already has all the infrastructural facilities that can sustain the state,” Mr Adetona said in his speech to Ijebu stakeholders at his palace on December 19.

‘Such include major industrial estates, like the Flowergate Industrial Estate, the fastest growing industrial estates in Nigeria, an international airport, with potential for a deep sea port, two international sports stadia in ljebu Ode and Sagamu,” the monarch further stated.