FEATURED
Ethiope State: Omo-Agege Breaks Silence, Blames Buhari-Era Deadlock for Delay, Vows to Push Bill in 2027
Deputy President of the 9th Senate, Ovie Omo-Agege, has broken his silence on years of criticism over the stalled creation of Ethiope State, insisting that the project was frustrated by the Buhari administration’s firm opposition to new states, and pledging to personally table a state creation bill “in the very first legislative session” if he returns to the Senate after 2027.
In a statement issued by his Special Adviser on Strategy and Communications, Godwin Anaughe, the former Deputy Senate President responded to renewed exchanges among stakeholders in the Ethiope State agitation, some of which referenced remarks he made to the Urhobo Progress Union (UPU) in September 2020.
The statement is presented as an effort to set the record straight after what it describes as recurring questions about what Omo-Agege actually did on the Ethiope State question during his time in office.
The push to carve Ethiope State out of the present-day Delta State structure has been part of Urhobo political discourse for years, gaining renewed attention each time the National Assembly opens a fresh constitution review process or the country debates restructuring.
Advocates argue an Ethiope State would give the Urhobo people, one of Nigeria’s largest ethnic nationalities, direct control over resources and representation currently housed within Delta State.
The 2020 UPU engagement referenced in the statement came at a time when Omo-Agege, as Deputy President of the Senate, also chaired the Senate Committee on Constitution Review — a position that placed him at the center of any state creation push moving through the National Assembly. It is that dual role, and what he did or did not do with it, that has become the subject of dispute among Urhobo stakeholders in recent weeks.
The statement recounts that in September 2020, Omo-Agege hosted a UPU delegation led by the Okobaro of Ughievwen Kingdom, HRM Dr. Matthew Ediri Egbi (JP), Owahwa II. His message to them, the statement says, was that state creation is a constitutional process requiring broad national consensus, cross-party and cross-regional lobbying, and — crucially — the cooperation of whichever administration holds power at the time.
The camp insists that advice reflected the political reality of the moment rather than any reluctance to champion the Urhobo cause, and that Omo-Agege used his office to ensure Urhobo concerns were raised at the highest levels of government.
The statement’s central defense rests on a specific closed-door meeting. According to the account, Omo-Agege — then chairman of the Senate Committee on Constitution Review — met directly with former President Muhammadu Buhari and the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives to present more than 100 constitutional amendment requests gathered from across the National Assembly, including bids for new states from various parts of the country.
He reportedly asked Buhari pointedly which proposals the presidency would or would not accept, and why.
The statement says the answer was unambiguous: Buhari’s administration would not back the creation of any new states, full stop. Pushing a bill forward under those conditions, the camp argues, would have amounted to “legislative theatre, not governance,” since state creation under Nigeria’s constitutional framework requires executive cooperation at critical stages to have any chance of success. Faced with that closed door, Omo-Agege reportedly opted against a symbolic, doomed push and instead worked to keep the Urhobo Nation’s case alive and its access to federal decision-makers intact, calculating that a more favorable political moment would eventually arrive.
The statement argues that calculus has now shifted decisively. It points to statements of support for state creation from President Bola Ahmed Tinubu as evidence that “the executive door that was shut for eight years is now open,” and frames the change as removing the single biggest obstacle that stood in the way during the Buhari years.
With that obstacle gone, the statement argues, the debate should move on from questions about past inaction to questions about present accountability. It poses a pointed challenge to sitting federal legislators from the Urhobo-speaking Delta Central senatorial district: if the presidency is now receptive to state creation, where is the Ethiope State Creation Bill, and where is the corresponding motion currently before the Senate? The framing effectively shifts scrutiny away from Omo-Agege’s own record and onto whoever currently holds legislative responsibility for the project.
The statement’s timing and structure suggest it is less a historical clarification than an opening move in what is likely to be a contested political season ahead of the 2027 elections. By anchoring blame for the delay squarely on the Buhari presidency — a government that left office in 2023 — the statement seeks to insulate Omo-Agege from criticism over roughly six years, from 2020 to the present, during which Ethiope State remained uncreated despite his committee chairmanship. It also positions him, rather than his rivals, as the figure best placed to finish the job once conditions allow, while casting doubt on the leadership credentials of at least one named rival within the movement.
The statement reserves its sharpest language for Senator Ede Dafinone, whom it accuses of walking away when he was approached to lead the agitation, publicly ridiculing the movement’s organizers, and speaking divisively against his own people — all while, the statement claims, backing the creation of a separate state elsewhere on the record. It further alleges that when the campaign was gaining momentum, Dafinone published an article aimed at discrediting the leaders driving it, and stayed silent while others sacrificed time and resources to keep the effort going. The statement describes this record as “a failure of leadership” and “a betrayal of the Urhobo Nation.”
By contrast, the statement insists that Omo-Agege never authored or endorsed any article or statement attacking fellow Urhobo figures involved in the Ethiope State project, characterizing his conduct throughout as restrained and responsible. The pointed comparison signals that the dispute over Ethiope State has become entangled with a broader rivalry between the two senators, likely to play out further as political positioning intensifies ahead of 2027.
Should Ethiope State not materialize before the 2027 general elections, Omo-Agege’s camp says he will introduce the Ethiope State Creation Bill in the very first legislative session immediately upon his return to the Senate. The statement commits him to mobilizing bipartisan support across both the Senate and House of Representatives, taking the case directly to the presidency, and working with all stakeholders to see the project through — describing the 2027 mandate as something to be “purposefully and relentlessly deployed” toward that end.
The statement frames this pledge not as a new promise but as an effort to complete work already begun, crediting the Ethiope State Creation Committee and naming several of its members for their unpaid efforts over the years, including Chief Dr. Christopher Ominimini Obiuwevbi, Dr. Wilson Omene, Engr. Chief Anthony Onyokoko, Ambassador Chief Dr. Omodoro Adeseye-Ogunlewe, Bishop Blessing Erifeta, Bishop Dr. Harriton Akpodiete, and Most Reverend Dr. Isaac Obie. It also credits the UPU broadly with providing the movement’s moral and institutional backbone.
The statement closes with a direct appeal to all federal legislators from Delta Central to set aside party and personal differences and move the Ethiope State Creation Bill forward together, warning that the current window of opportunity “will not stay open forever.” It also calls on the UPU, as the apex socio-cultural body for Urhobo people worldwide, to provide non-partisan guidance and serve as a unifying force behind what it calls “this final push.”
“The creation of Ethiope State is bigger than any individual, any senator, and any political party,” the statement said, describing it as belonging to the Urhobo Nation as a whole and urging stakeholders to “set aside ego and politics” in pursuit of it.
With President Tinubu’s administration seen by Omo-Agege’s camp as more receptive to state creation than its predecessor, attention is likely to shift toward whether any concrete bill or Senate motion on Ethiope State emerges before 2027.