Senators Suleiman Asonya Adokwe (PDP, Nasarawa South) and Olubunmi Adetunmbi (ACN, Ekiti North) have disagreed with each other on state creation as an agenda for the ongoing constitution amendment exercise.

They both spoke in Abuja yesterday at a programme tagged "Hot Seat," organised by the Senate Press Corps.

Adokwe, who is the chairman of the Senate Services Committee, described the creation of more states as a way of giving minority groups an opportunity to govern their respective states.

According to him, although the process of state creation could be laborious and rigorous, creating additional states would help disprove the claim that only the military can create states in Nigeria.

Reacting, Senator Adetunmbi feared that creating additional states would usher in an additional burden to the nation.

Adetunmbi, who is the vice chairman of the Senate Committee on Interior, said the poverty rate used to be lower when the nation had only 12 states, maintaining that creating additional states would not be in the interest of Nigerians.

"I'm not a believer of proliferation of states in the country that is not benefiting our people. When the country had regional government, the quality of lives our people is better than what we have in the country right now", said Adetunmbi.

On the ongoing alliance talks among the opposition parties, Adetunmbi expressed optimism that the alliance would be successful, stressing that the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) would de "uprooted" in the 2015 general elections.