The Governor of Enugu State Dr. Peter Mbah has sought the support of the Nigerian Navy and other security agencies to end sit-at-home in the South East Region.
He made the appeal on Tuesday when he visited the Chief of Naval Staff (CNS) Rear Admiral Emmanuel Ogalla at the Naval Headquarters, Abuja.
He said his administration has zero tolerance for the sit-at-home which was inhibiting business and development.
“I assumed office as Gov of Enugu, immediately I convened a security Council meeting and following from that we made pronouncement that we wanted the sit at home to end because we have zero tolerance to that. There is no way we’ll be able to achieve exponential picture we have painted, those massive promise about growing our economy, eradicating poverty, it will not happen if we dont deal with that problem and of course that requires we needed to tighten our security architecture, mobilise our security agencies in our state to be able to deal with it.
“Thus far we are getting the required support from the security agencies and we are hoping to see more join hands with us to be able to deal with this big elephant.
When I was sworn in, I took an oath to defend the unity of this country and that is exactly what we’ll do and we are not going to endorse any behaviour that is outside that so what in effect we are saying is that we look forward to partnering with the Navy in those areas that are necessary to do so in order to achieve one common goal of building one unifying country, peace and security”.
He thanked President Tinubu for appointing Admiral Ogalla, an Indigene of Enugu State to head the Nigerian Navy.
“I want to start by expressing my gratitude and deep appreciation for this honour. I want to also on behalf of the government and the good people of Enugu State express our gratitude to the President and Commander in chief of the Armed forces of the federal republic of Nigeria for the honour he deed to us not just as a people of the South East but in particular Ndigbo for appointing one of our sons, the Naval chief. I also want to seize this opportunity to assure him that we and indeed our son will not let him and the country down because greatness and honesty run in the DNA of the people of Enugu State” he said.
He lamented that the revenue model in the state was not sufficient to fund critical sectors such as security hence, the drive for an exponential growth.
He said: “we felt that the model we had in the last 24 years particularly the revenue model even though it may have served us, we are no longer able to optimally intervene in critical sectors we have in our economy and if we must deal with the root causes of insecurity we have in our country, we must adopt both the kinetic and non kinetic approaches to dealing with insecurity and we felt that the big elephant in the room was to address those inhibitors those activities that may be an inhibitor in bringing in investors to our state. We identified as one of those inhibitors, insecurity we felt that it was a curve in the wave of continued development so which was why immediately”
In his remarks, Rear Admiral Ogalla assured the Governor of his determination to the end the menace. He also disclosed that the Navy was planning to establish a permanent base in the State in order to contribute to peace efforts.
He said the relationship between the Nigerian Navy and other stakeholders like the State Government have been very instrumental to the successes achieved over the years.
“The current security situation facing this government requires a whole of government approach. We don’t see them as purely naval challenges and that is why we have extended our operations to cover both maritime domain and even the land spectrum. That is why even in our total maritime strategy which comprise five spectrum of operations, land form a vital aspect of our strategies.
“Based on this, we have extended our operations to several places, you are aware of Naval base in Ontisha where our special forces are being deployed to contribute to the security of the area and the South East region at large.
“Similarly, we have a Naval base in Oguta in Imo state which has played a vital role in respect to fighting insecurity. We are going to extend this operations further. This is to states like Enugu and other South Eastern states. We also have in our strategic plan, the vision of having a permanent presence in Enugu state to contribute to the security of the state with an overall objective of promoting the economic well-being of the state” he said.
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