Imo State Governor Hope Uzodimma has declared that the responsibility of ending the “sit-at-home” order in the Southeast region extends beyond the governors of the respective states.
He stated this yesterday after meeting with President Bola Tinubu to seek an appointment for Southeast leaders and Ohanaeze Ndigbo to meet the president over worsening insecurity in the region.
The governor said the prolonged sit-at-home directives were detrimental to the nation’s progress.
While acknowledging the challenges faced by the Southeast region,Uzodinma believes that addressing the root causes of insecurity and implementing robust security measures will pave the way for economic growth and national unity.
He said, “the situation in the southeast is not as simple as some people think. There’s no government directive for sit-at-home procedure to either local government directive nor any state nor the zone.
“But the situation is that because of the indiscriminate killing of people and high level of insecurity, our people are so afraid to come out.
“It is perception management that we’re trying to do. So there is too much fear in the people. Otherwise, how can non-state actors give a sit-at-home order and it will be obeyed. People are scared. People are afraid because of what they’ve seen in the past.
“And nobody wants to die. Neither me nor anybody so that is why the federal government comes in to step up very high security measures to manage the situation, the sense of security will come back to the citizenry and they will be able to go about their businesses.
The governor said he does not operate the contentious ‘Security Vote’, but has made a case for state governors to be given more latitude and headroom to tackle security challenges at subnational levels, even with the nation’s federal structure.
Uzodimma stressed that while he has no security vote to draw from even as the ‘Chief Security Officer’ of Imo State, he manages to adopt both kinetic and non-kinetic strategies to deal with security challenges as much as he is able to within the law.
Asked about the claim by former Niger Delta militant leader, Asari Dokubo, that his men were helping the federal government to tackle insecurity in the South East, Uzodimma replied that he was not aware of it.
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