State creation in Nigeria has never been a mere act of cartography. It is not only the redrawing of maps or the invention of new capitals; it is a profound reallocation of power, resources, and recognition. From the 1967 restructuring that birthed the first 12 states, to the 1996 exercise that gave us Bayelsa and Ebonyi, state creation has always functioned as a political tool of justice, correcting imbalances, bringing governance closer to the people, and offering fresh political opportunities to the historically sidelined.
As the National Assembly debates Senate Bill 481, the proposal to carve an “Anioma State” out of Delta State, headlines have rightly focused on geopolitics and senators’ arithmetic. Less attention has been paid to a simple question that should govern every argument for constitutional engineering: who will benefit, and how? This is particularly important for women, a demographic that comprises the majority of Nigeria’s population and who stand to inherit any new state’s institutions. This piece, therefore, examines the potentials of Anioma state creation through a gendered lens.
“Anioma” is a regional identity used across Aniocha, Ndokwa, Ika, and Oshimili areas of the Northern Delta. This regional identity claim is politically potent as it mobilizes shared culture, history, language, and a narrative of “unfinished justice” in the distribution of states. The bill’s proponent, distinguished Senator Ned Munir Nwoko (Delta North), presents the project as correcting a geopolitical imbalance for Igbo-affiliated communities cut into the South-South for administrative convenience.
This agitation, though age-long, has gained unprecedented traction in 2025 because the constitutional review provides a legal pathway, and because the sponsor has marshalled massive senators’ signatures. The Senate Bill 481, introduced and championed by Senator Ned Nwoko, has now moved from agitation to legislation. The zonal public hearing phase and the overwhelming upper-chamber support transformed the agitation into a concrete piece of constitutional business. The bill is officially part of the ongoing constitutional review and is backed by large senatorial endorsements; over 90 senators have signed on, exceeding the two-thirds constitutional threshold requirement. These are the procedural facts you will find in the opener of any column.
However, the political reality is that state creation goes beyond being a technical constitutional exercise; it is a political bargaining venture: new ministries, commissions, appointments, jobs, and therefore new opportunities to rewrite patterns of inclusion. That is where gender policy must be parked, loudly and early; given that the creation of a territorial unit is not an automatic delivery mechanism for social justice: it is a reallocation of power and resources that must be programmed to serve marginalized groups, including women.
According to the IPU’s global index gender gap report, women’s political representation in Nigeria remains among the lowest in the world, ranking 143 out of 144 countries, and also less than the Sub-Saharan regional average.
Meanwhile, it is no gainsaying that a new Anioma State starts with a blank political slate. All its structures must be staffed afresh. As earlier mentioned, one incontrovertible reality of state creation is that it creates new offices, including a full state House of Assembly, commissioners, heads of agencies, and more local government roles. That process presents an opening for women to take their place. In fact, history shows that newer states create new room for women, no matter how small. When Ebonyi was carved out in 1996, the new ministries and assembly did not just create political positions; they created space. Some women who had been voiceless in old Anambra began to rise. Senator Grace Obaji, Franca Afebia, Florence Nwankwo, and many others embody this example.
Globally, I have seen even more dramatic examples. Rwanda’s post-genocide constitution (2003) combined state restructuring with gender quotas, producing the world’s highest female parliamentary representation (61% women in 2023). The precedent is clear: when new structures are built, women can claim spaces. Thus, creating the Anioma state goes beyond balancing Nigeria’s geopolitical map. It is about increasing the political representation of Anioma women, especially at the federal level, to amplify our voices.
Let’s look at this potential again from another angle. In Nigeria, more women win elections at the state level than at the federal level, and more women get appointed than elected. PLAC and UNWomen data have shown that some Nigerian states outperform the federal averages in women’s elective and appointive representation. State-level, therefore, is a more realistic entry point for women aspiring to be political voices. For instance, only about 17% of ministers at the federal level are women; meanwhile, in Kwara State, over 55% of its cabinet are women, exceeding the 35% affirmative action. The 10th Assembly, for example, has only 4 women out of 109 Senators and 17 out of 360 Representatives, totaling around 7%.
Although state legislative success remains below par, the above instances demonstrate that state-level government provides more visibility and accessible opportunities for women; that is, it is relatively less costly to run and campaigns are more local. Local, here, suggests that the competition is closer to home. These relatively low-cost and local campaigns offer a considerable advantage in a country where UNWomen has noted financial limitations, unpaid care work, and tight homemaking duties as barriers contributing to low women’s participation in politics. Since women are better given opportunities in appointive positions and women fare better at the state level politics, then state creation provides an avenue for more opportunities that could include women.
Creating Anioma State, with new cabinet and agency structures, would allow for more appointive and state-level elective positions where women could participate in decision-making processes towards inclusive governance. I am confident that Anioma would promote women in leadership because, since historical times till date, the Anioma people have maintained a long-standing culture that enthrones women, for example, the Omu tradition, where women wield power.
In the same vein, since additional state and federal seats raise the statistical probability for women, this means hope for increased women’s numerical representation. This is a significant step towards achieving the critical mass threshold, which will enable women to influence more policies and programs that advance the wellbeing of women as a gender constituent.
Since women in Rwanda crossed a critical mass threshold, currently holding about 63.8% of seats, they have not simply appeared in parliament; they have reshaped legislation to improve maternal healthcare, strengthen inheritance rights, and redefine the rules against gender-based violence. These, though achieved through the intersection of other factors such as support from men lawmakers and the regime, the place of critical mass in these wins can also not be overemphasized. In Nigeria, several female federal lawmakers sponsored pro-women bills: for example, Hon. Nkeiruka Onyejeocha in the 9th assembly first introduced the Reserved Seats Bill (HB 1349), which seeks to guarantee a minimum number of special seats for women in both federal and state legislatures.
If more women held seats, raising descriptive representation, such bills would have stronger support, clearer visibility, higher likelihood of passage, and better follow-through. Increasing the number of women in legislatures creates the political weight needed for policies and programs that address women’s wellbeing explicitly. This is not to say that numerical increase guarantees substantive representation. Instead, I contend that numerical gains cannot be altogether displaced in political schemes and that it matters in influencing policy support and legislative decisions and outcomes towards gender gains, no matter how small.
Politics, in Nigeria, is a game of numbers. Hence, I posit that the creation of Anioma state would add to the numbers and the voices at all levels, towards the betterment of women. Moreso, the creation of Anioma state holds promise for a fresh wave of political socialisation and role modelling for women interested in descriptive representation. Evidence supports that women respond positively to direct mentorship. A visible circuit of women in positions would help change the dynamics of political norms.
First, it tends to inspire and produce practical mentoring and candidate pipelines, especially beneficial for women in politics. Secondly, role modelling helps build political resilience and reduce attrition rate for women in politics.
Additionally, Anioma state creation would mean a narrower focus on women’s issues in ways that may not have been accounted for in a broader political administration. Anioma State would bring governance much closer to Ndokwa, Aniocha, Ika, and Oshimili, and others mapped in. I dare say that administrative proximity improves representation, if prioritized. Yes, I advocate for administrative concentration that yields better results.
The decentralization theory suggests that more decentralized governments can improve responsiveness to local needs. For women, proximity does matter. It could mean a state house willing to pass and enforce the Violence Against Persons Prohibition (VAPP) Act. It could mean a Ministry of Health willing to prioritize sexual and reproductive health services. It could mean state-funded safe spaces for survivors of gender-based violence.
A closer, homogeneous, Anioma state could rationalize service delivery for women’s priorities: maternal healthcare, maternity entitlements, girlchild education, and gender-based-violence responses, especially when capacity follows. Consequently, Anioma state creation could mean increased women’s interest and participation in national and state discourse because these affairs are psychologically closer now.
Furthermore, in the scale of benefits for women, the economy is not left out. Politics may open doors, but the economy puts food on the table. According to the National Bureau of Statistics (2024), women are disproportionately represented in informal employment, with fewer opportunities for access to credit, contracts, or formal jobs. A new Anioma State means a new budget, new allocations. It means new ministries with staff to hire, new infrastructure contracts, and new procurements for goods and services. Every naira spent by a new state is a potential source of empowerment. Where policy is intentional, Anioma state could mean micro-enterprise funds, incubation hubs, support for female entrepreneurs, and procurement quotas for women-owned enterprises, modelling the proposed Federal Government’s 30% procurement quota for women-owned businesses.
How about the rich resources and natural deposits in Anioma land that state creation would allow us to focus on and get more productive with, to the benefit of our own people? Indeed, Anioma state creation will open new frontiers of the economy to everyone, including women.
While state creation as a political instrument can be used to heal, to redistribute, or to entrench, Anioma State promises to be a gender-just project of nation-building, not an old-fashioned exercise in patronage redeployment. Our difference will be in the political will, design, and civil society vigilance.
I hence conclude by reemphasizing the main point: Anioma State creation opens up a blank slate for new structures to be built from scratch, and these new structures come with new opportunities in their wake, with spaces for women. The Anioma State creation bill, therefore, is a bold socio-political investment in the future of our women. It holds high hopes of more voices for more women. But before those voices can echo in new assemblies, we must first use our own voice now, through advocacy, participation, and solidarity, to push this bill from vision to victory.
This is a clarion call to women, an urgent reminder that the structures we inherit will not shift unless we exert pressure and intensify effort. As I have often reminded my peers: “Change is not in the spelling but in the making” (Chiazor Faith, 2025). This is the moment to act. This is the time to put your hope and faith into work; into lobbying, organizing, debating, and engaging towards the promise of a more inclusive governance that Anioma State holds for us all. Do not wait to be handed space; let us create the space. Do not be content with watching history unfold; let us be a part of that history. The movement is already in motion; join us to amplify it. Anioma State is not just another political project; it is a promise of empowerment for our women, and the time to actualize it is now.
Faith Chiazor, Research Assistant to the office of the Senator Representing Delta North Senatorial District, Distinguished Senator Ned Nwoko
