‘Rename Kogi Confluence State’, Group Tells Nigerian Govt

The Centre for Speech Development and Learning Initiative on Thursday asked the National Assembly for a constitutional review to rename ‘Kogi’ as ‘Confluence State.’

This was made known by the group’s Executive Director, Alexius Maiyanga, during a press conference in Abuja on Thursday.

Noting that the call became necessary because the present geographical and political area called ‘Kogi’ is the host of Rivers Niger and Benue, Africa’s most important rivers.

The group explained that, if countries could have their names changed as in the case of Upper Volta to Burkina Faso, Gold Coast to Ghana, the renaming of Kogi State is not a difficult thing to do by the National Assembly.

He emphasized the importance of names, saying they have deep personal, cultural and historical connections.

‘’Our names are an incredibly important part of our identity. They carry very deep personal, cultural, emotional, familiar and historical connections. Names give us a sense of who we are, the communities in which we belong and our place in the world,’’ he said.

Maiyanga said Nigeria recognizes the English language as the official language of communication, stressing that General Ibrahim Babangida (Rtd), who created the state and the Supreme Military Council, communicated wrongly as far as the nomenclature of Kogi State was concerned.

He said, ‘’Why did Babangida and his military associates bury one of Nigeria’s gigantic blessings of the two huge rivers; Niger and Benue with an amazing breath-taking confluence at Lokoja, the state capital?

‘’In Kogi, all the ethnic groups have a name for a river, why was none selected from amongst them?’’

He said the press conference is directed to the National Assembly at this auspicious time when the two houses have commenced the process of constitutional review.

He said: “One of the enduring legacies of the military juntas in Nigeria is the creation of states. First, the regions were replaced with 12 states in 1967 by Yakubu Gowon followed by another 12 states in 1976 by Muritala Mohammed; two states were created by Ibrahim Babangida in 1987 and nine more in 1991 and Sani Abacha completed the exercise in 1996 with 6 more states, making the 36 states in the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

“In the 1999 constitution and under the General Provisions Part I 3(1), all the names of states are therein stated which means nothing can be done except through legislative re-engineering. That is why this press conference is directed to the National Assembly at this auspicious time when the two houses have commenced the process of constitutional review.

“However, our names are an incredibly important part of our identity. They carry very deep personal, cultural, emotional, familiar and historical connections. Names also give us a sense of who we are, the communities in which we belong and our place in the world.

“With studied realisation and confirmed by Hausa Dictionary, the word Kogi means a River. The word ‘Kogi’ is also a chibchan language of the Colombians. The Kogi speaking people of Colombia are almost entirely monolingual and maintain the only unconquered Andean civilisation.”