Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Aminu Tambuwal has assured Nigerians agitating for the creation of states saying that the National Assembly will ensure that new states are created before the middle of its tenure.

Also, the former governor of Kaduna State, Senator Ahmed Mohammed Makarfi regretted that the last National Assembly made a mistake by throwing away a Bill for the establishment of the Electoral Offences Tribunal.

Both Tambuwal and Makarfi spoke Monday at a "Round Table Discussion on post election violence: the way forward" organised by the Kaduna State Council of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ).

Tambuwal who was represented by Hon. Godfrey Gaiya, representing Jaba/Zango Kataf Federal constituency also disclosed that the House will reintroduce the controversial bill on internal party democracy as a way of addressing numerous election petitions at the various tribunals across the country.

According to him, the House plans to begin work on the amendment of the 1999 constitution on time as a way of avoiding the pitfalls that characterised the last amendment,stressing that a committee to handle the review had been inaugurated and will soon begin its assignment.

He said the issue of state creation and revenue sharing formula will be handled by the committee on their merit, adding that the house will do its best to ensure that states that only viable states that can stand on their own are created before their midterm report of the house.

"Of course the sixth Assembly tried their best and were not able to do anything. Of course this time around, we are starting early and I am sure that before the middle of our tenure, we will be talking of states that feasible and states that are not feasible.

"In the last assembly, we started a bill that talks about internal democracy and this time around, we are revisiting that bill that will introduce internal democracy within the set up.

"If that can be done, it is our believe that the rampant cases of going to tribunal on election matters would have been discouraged because the political parties who are the bastion of democracy will not ensure that only candidates that are acceptable to the people are presented for election" he said.

On his part Makarfi who blamed politicians for the post election violence, regretted that the National Assembly mistakenly threw the Bill seeking the establishment of Electoral offences Tribunal, stressing that the establishment of the tribunal would have gone a long way in tackling issues relating electoral offences and violence.

He said Nigerians went to the April election very divided along regional, ethnic and religious lines and blamed politicians for causing disunity among Nigerians.

" We went into that election not united but in a very divisive form, North, south, this zone, that zone. We didn't go into that election on the basis issues. We did not look at what is good for Nigeria, what is good for a particular state. We went into the elections in a highly divisive form and all Nigerians should take the blame for that because they participated one way or the other.

"There were reckless talks and body languages that you may do whatever you like, a particular outcome is guaranteed. That was highly irresponsible of all of us that exhibited that behaviour. So people were infuriated, they were just looking for a small fault.

"The last national Assembly, we made a mistake and all of us should accept that we made a mistake when a bill to establish the electoral offences tribunal was thrown away. Some of us made frantic efforts to make sure that it was not thrown away.

"If that were in place, then dealing with election related offences and crimes can be handled more expeditiously and if people know that they will pay a fine for either committing electoral offence or violence, that will make them think twice before they do it, thereby improving the electoral process and also preventing either violence or post election violence as the case may be" Makarfi said.