The Centre for Speech Development and Learning Initiative has urged the National Assembly to initiate a constitutional review for the renaming of ‘Kogi’ to ‘Confluence State.’ Executive Director Alexius Maiyanga conveyed this request during a press briefing in Abuja on Thursday.
Maiyanga highlighted the significance of this proposal, citing the current ‘Kogi’ region as the convergence point of Africa’s most crucial rivers, Niger and Benue. Drawing parallels to the renaming of countries like Upper Volta to Burkina Faso and Gold Coast to Ghana, he asserted that changing the name of Kogi State is a feasible task for the National Assembly.
He underscored the profound connections names hold, encompassing personal, cultural, and historical aspects.
‘’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 that 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?’’
