Pages: (13-24 )
Abstract
The issue of State creation was one of the military approaches adopted in 1967, on the eve of the Nigerian civil war, to help prevent Nigeria from disintegrating. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that the various state creation exercises embarked by the military in Nigeria have failed to assuage the very forces that undermine Nigeria's progress toward political integration of the country. This paper seeks to demonstrate how the fissiparous tendencies bearing on the Nigerian national polity make the policy of using state creation to achieve national integration a failed strategy. The paper employs both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies and argues, with relevant primary and secondary sources, that the prospects for national integration depend on the emergence of a purposeful national leadership and proper political restructuring of the federation designed to generate a national image that has more appeal than the regional ones.
Keywords: Military, Government, State Creation, National integration, Strategy, Approach, Economy,