The members of the Bauchi State House of Representatives caucus seeking the creation of Katagum State have re-submitted their application.
The resubmission followed the declaration by the Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Construction Review and Deputy Speaker Benjamin Kalu that the application period since the 31 applications received so far have not met constitutional requirements
However, speaking to journalists about the resubmission of the application for Katagum state, the member representing Katagum federal constituency of Bauchi, Auwalu Gwalabe, speaking on behalf of the caucus said that the National Assembly should repeal Section 3 of the 1999 to pave way for the creation of Katagum state and additional local governments.
According to him, the proposal for the creation of Katagum state has been on for a while and has widespread support from people of the area as well as members of the parliament from the state and beyond.
Gwalabe said, “You are all aware, some time ago, we demanded for the creation of Katagum State, and a memorandum was submitted to the Committee on Constitutional Review, and unfortunately, the committee realised that there are some errors and mistakes in some of almost all the memorandums, the 31 memos that were sent to them.
“They gave us an ultimatum, a time limit of 5th of March, within which to correct all these memos and resubmit back to the committee. And today, we are submitting our own re-corrected documents, duly signed by our elected councillors, our elected chairmen of the local government councils.
“Our elected members of the state assemblies, our elected members from the House of Representatives, and our elected senators from the zone and other zones from Bauchi state. In view of this, we are submitting these documents to the Committee on Constitutional Review.
“So in view of that and on behalf of the entire people, the entire population of the United People of Katagum, Jama’are, and Misau, who are the carved areas demanding for the creation of Katagum state, we are now going to hand over these documents in your presence to the clerk of the committee who will now transmit all the information to the main committee.
“We have the manpower, we have the land spread, we have the facilities. We agitated for, we have been agitating as far back as 1980 during the Second Republic when Shehu Shagari was the president and Olusola Saraki was the senate president. We have been agitating. We agitated for the second time, lost to Gombe.
“You should all be aware the members of the National Assembly, who all come from these areas demanding for the creation of Katagum state have sent in, we have passed a motion, we did first reading in support of all of our people who come from the same carved area. We had a second reading, and now we are probably going for a public hearing.
“In fact, we are even so lucky to have even some of our colleagues from Bauchi state who are not from the carved areas of demanding the creation of Katagum state also supported us in signing, supporting us on our bills. One of our Senators, Abdul Ningi, signed and supported this creation.
“Our governor, Dr. Bala Muhammad, Kauran Bauchi, also supported this memo and gave us a very good encouragement as to make sure we will do the right thing, correct all these documents and resubmit. They are all in support. So, by this, I will ask my colleagues to stand up”.
Also speaking, Hon. Ibrahim Gamawa said the proposed Katagum state is already blessed with all the requirements for the creation of a state.
He said, “Even state capitals that have been created long ago do not have some of the facilities as the proposed state capitals enjoy presently. If you look at the road networks connecting Azare with major towns in the North like Kano, Maiduguri, the power grid, road networks in the state, even university.
“We presently have a university in Azare. We have a teaching hospital and other facilities. So, creating Katagum state will not be a burden to the federal government. In fact, very little will be done for this state capital.
“So I think one of the foremost states, even if you had to create two states in Nigeria, I’m sure Katagum will qualify. So, we are submitting this with the hope that it will look into properly and we shall get what we want, Insha Allah”.
Similarly, Hon. Sani Tanko stated that Katagum State has a very long history, and he is happy that members from the state and the Katagum area are unanimous in their endorsement of the agitation which he said was a mandate that must be fulfilled for their people.
