Insecurity: South East governors doing their best - Obi

Fri, Jun 18, 2021
By editor
4 MIN READ

Featured, Politics

PETER obi, vice presidential candidate under the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, in the last general elections, has blamed the widespread insecurity in Nigeria on leadership failure.
He also said that the governors in the South East are doing their best giving the situation the found themselves.

Obi stated this in an exclusive interview with Realnews while reacting to why there is so much tension and insecurity in the land, especially in the South East which used to be relatively peaceful compared to other parts of the country.

Realnews reports that four months ago, the South East States was very peaceful but not anymore. There is crisis in the zone which appears to have been instigated from outside the states prompting some school of thought to posit that the federal government is doing everything possible to cause chaos in the region akin to giving a dog a bad name in order to invade the States and destroy it in order to derail the zones bid for presidency of South East extraction in 2023. On June 16, it was reported that 73 youths from Nasarawa State were apprehended while they were in a truck packed with motorcycles heading for Imo State.
This has fueled suspicion of the allegation that the crisis in the state is done by fifth columnist. This is more so when Governor Hope Uzodimma of Imo State said that 70 percent of 400 persons arrested for burning police station in the state are not Igbos.  It is alleged that some of those arrested were given Igbo names and paraded by the police but when you speak Igbo to them they cannot respond in Igbo.
Despite this, Realnews reports that the Usman Baba, inspector general of police in Nigeria in May order special police operations in the South East following a spate of burning of police stations, office of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC,  killing of some security operatives. Since then, there has been wanton combing of peoples homes and indiscriminate arrest and killing of young people in the region, especially in Imo State.
Perhaps, the happenstance made Obi to state that what is happening in the South East is a combination of all sorts of things. “First, I will say that the general insecurity in Nigeria is the cumulative effect of leadership failure over the years; not addressing the issues that we need to address, ie, education, health and the economy.

“That cumulative effect has reached where it is affecting all sections of Nigeria, compounded with the fact that right now the South East as you know, whenever the cry about marginalization and everything, people are like oh, it is not true. But as you can see today, it is obvious. It is there.

“Everybody can see it. And then we have a situation where they live in a system where there is a sense of not being wanted. And that has worsened the situation. And you have a situation of economic problem where you have millions of young people unemployed. You have also a situation where the South East feels a sense of marginalization, a sense of not being wanted. So it is a combination of all sorts of things.”

When asked if part of the problem in the South East is that there has been a leadership vacuum which has been filled by IPOB, which now has more followership than any other leader in the zone since the era of Chukwuemeka Ojukwu, or because the current leadership in the South East States is not doing what they are supposed to do, Obi replied that the governors were not to be blamed as they were doing their best.
“None of them will you say that they have abandoned what they were elected to do. None of them. Really, the approaches are different. Some have engaged more. Like I said, I am not there.
“It is when you are in the saddle that you can be able to expatiate more as to what is happening in Nigeria. It is all about the country. There is more followership, like when you go to the South West, Sunday Igboho has more followership. Go to South South, you see this happens when issues are not addressed properly.

“It depends on the support you are getting from the centre. I can tell you they are doing their best. There might be need for them to do more.”

– June 18, 2021 @ 08:34 GMT |

Tags: