By Chinedu Makata
By any serious standard, leadership is not measured by rhetoric but by consistency, fairness, and moral clarity. A leader who calls for unity must, in both word and deed, avoid actions that sow division or elevate personal preferences above collective justice.
It is against this backdrop that recent comments credited to the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Benjamin Kalu, require careful and honest scrutiny. While urging the South-East to unite and present a common front in the quest for a sixth state, he is at the same time advancing Anim State as the favoured proposal. This dual posture is deeply problematic and fundamentally contradictory.
One cannot credibly advocate for parity while simultaneously promoting a sectional option. Equity does not thrive under favouritism, and unity cannot be built on selective advocacy. Where, then, lies the fairness in urging consensus while implicitly declaring a winner?
The agitation for Adada State is neither recent nor opportunistic. It is one of the oldest, most consistent, and most historically grounded state-creation demands in the South-East—older, indeed, than some states already admitted into the Nigerian federation. Its foundations rest on cultural cohesion, demographic viability, administrative logic, and constitutional credibility. These facts are not matters of sentiment; they are verifiable realities.
To diminish or sideline such a long-standing agitation while projecting an alternative as “favoured” is to distort the very principle of parity being invoked. If the South-East truly seeks redress for its structural disadvantage as the only geopolitical zone with five states, then the process must be guided by neutrality, fairness, and historical honesty, not personal or political proximity.
The unfortunate passing of Okey Ezea deprived the region of a forthright voice who consistently understood that justice for the South-East must be collective rather than selective. In his absence, the responsibility on present leaders is even greater—to rise above parochial interests and act as true statesmen.
What the current narrative suggests, regrettably, is a winner-takes-all approach, thinly veiled beneath the language of unity. This posture does not strengthen the South-East; it weakens it. It replaces consensus with quiet resentment and moral authority with political convenience.
If the Deputy Speaker is genuinely committed to correcting the imbalance that has long disadvantaged the South-East, then the path forward is clear. He must embrace equity in its purest form by supporting the most historically justified, broadly acceptable, and objectively viable proposal—Adada State.
Anything short of this undermines the very unity he calls for and indirectly reinforces the injustice he claims to oppose. He who seeks equity must do so with clean hands.
Adada State remains the most credible answer to the South-East’s quest for parity. To ignore this reality is not progress; it is marginalisation, injustice, and a costly diversion from a just cause.
The South-East deserves fairness, not favouritism.
It deserves justice, not contradiction.
It deserves Adada State.
Chinedu Makata sent in this piece via makaaty@gmail.com
