In the just concluded week, the South-eastern governors expressed readiness to launch its regional security outfit in order to tackle the worsening insecurity in their respective states.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!While the name of the security outfit would be announced at their next governors’ forum meeting, the Chairman of the forum, Ebonyi State Governor, Chief David Umahi, stated that, after it has been launched, each South-eastern state’s Commissioner of Justice would finalize its necessary draft bill for passage into law by each State’s House of Assembly in order to give legal backing to the regional outfit.
In a similar development, the Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum (SMBLF) alerted the President on the need to urgently save the souls of people at the Southern part of Kaduna as killings in the state, according to the Southern Kaduna Peoples Union (SOKAPU), have claimed more than 63 lives.
The urgent call on the Federal Government by SMBLF was amid the continued wanton killings despite the curfew imposed by Kaduna State Governor, Nasir Ahmed el-Rufai.
However, FG, which stated that the problem in Southern Kaduna was a combination of politically-motivated banditry, revenge killings and mutual violence by criminal gangs, claimed that Southern Kaduna enjoys comprehensive security deployments.
Meanwhile, amid the on-going probe of the financial mismanagement by the leadership of Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio, listed names of Senators he claimed were the major contractors of the agency, following his statement that the lawmakers were the biggest beneficiaries of the unfinished projects awarded by NDDC.
The Minister stated that four Senators received 74 contracts from the Commission between 2017 and 2020, and that the Chairman of the House Committee on NDDC, Hon. Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, inserted 19 contracts worth N9 billion into NDDC’s 2019 budget.
We commend the South-eastern Governors for the joint efforts in providing security around their boarder, especially at this tme when insurgents are rising against the military.
We expect passage of the necessary draft bill into law, which will give legal backing to the security outfit, to be completed before launching the security outfit as this will help to avoid set back amid questions around its constitutionality.
Meanwhile, we note that the current administration would further earn the trust of Nigerians on its anti-corruption crusade if the on-going probe of the NDDC top officials and that of the ex-EFCC boss, Ibrahim Magu were pursued to a logical conclusion.