By Michael Agbaji
Senator Representing Abia central Senatorial district. Sen.Augustine Akobundu,says,the quest for South East Development Commission (SEDC) is long overdue because of economy important and the Contributions of the region to national GDp.
Sen.Akobundu stated this in Abuja while speaking to Journalists to in reaction to just passage of the bill in the second reading at the Senate.
According to him, I want to appreciate the sponsors of the bill which started from the House of Reps and got concurrence from the Senate.
He says the issue of south east development bill had been on for quite a while but thankGod, it went through this time, so we thank each and every one of us who have been part of this,for me, I consider it a great opportunity to be part of history. as per what that portends for Southeast clearly holistic development, South east as a region will be major beneficiaries of this platform.
He further says,all the leader from w come together to ensure that we the advantages ensure this bill is assented to by the President for the development of the region,for me this bill provide a regional cohesion because this is a platform that will be operated at a nonpartisan level.
He say It is about development, our governors, our legislators, our stakeholders, our business men, our industrialists should be involved in ensuring that all the advantages are fully harnessed,so it is a welcome development and for Purely development of South East he says”.
On the issue of current insecurity in Abia State and by extension in Nigeria, Sen Akobundu says, insecurity is a general trend that every state has its own share of insecurity. So, like you rightly pointed out,that the root causes of insecurity youths unemployment, other like herds and farmers those are causes are very significant.
He says , dealing with a lack of job opportunities for young ones who left school and who are leaving in schools, most of them are not employed,In some rural areas, famine is an issue.
He pointed out poverty, hunger, access to a better life and out of school are driven forcefully may have moved people into all kinds of criminal activities which he says, is the bedrock of insecurity and for the government to tackle that you have to start addressing, isolate the causes and begin to address them but don’t forget, there are other contiguous states like Abia state with a cross border criminalities crimes committed by criminals moving from other contiguous states through the local governments contiguous to Abia he says.
According to him, commit crimes move out of the state to another state need a collaboration from other state to tackle the criminality within the context of law and also look solutions from neighboring state that to be done in collaborative approach in dealing with that no state can say it is dealing with its alone security without collaborating from next state.
He says,my plans are in the works, you know I came here just about three months ago. Thankfully, I was part of the preparation of the budget,I have projects, I have plans, I have programs for my senatorial district thankfully, a good number of them also met the budget. So we are articulating our program in every sphere of human endeavor within the context of what is allowable and achievable in terms of access to opportunities. Yes, we are putting our programs together. If you look at agriculture, we have a program for agriculture, where we will encourage our farmers to farm by giving them access to fertilizer and other agro allied opportunities that can help them produce food, increase the production, and quality production from the farms.
According to him, insecurity, that can be a problem of food problem because people are not going into the farm and that is why the government have to dealing with insecurity squarely.
He says,proponent of rural community watches that will help improve security in the rural areas and what that means is that you look at a local government, you must, as a deliberate policy, ensure that even the traditional institutions who reside in the works are trained, equipped, encouraged in the areas of intelligence gathering, and local vigilantes must be activated under the leadership of the traditional rulers because every area has it’s own leadership and if that is done and tied together, within the local government, you’re going to have a network of local community watchers in terms of security.
This takes us back to the topical issue of community policing. everybody in the community knows who is who, who comes in. When a stranger comes in, they know. We have to begin to go back to the traditional ways of security driven right from the rural areas where people know themselves that means if a stranger comes into a particular community, everybody knows that local governments vigilante groups have been put together under the guidance of the police, registered them within the framework of the law.
So with that, at least, you can be sure basically, that if there are movements they are not known or acceptable to such communities, such movements will be reported and so far, it’s not been bad there has been a reduction of security threats in certain communities but there are some communities that are still struggling, with incessant kidnappings and all that, I think there is a step up in the activities of the police and the other security agencies.
According to him,as a retired soldier. I know that the non Kinetic aspect of fighting security and fighting criminality is more effective than the kinetic approach but you need a combination of the two and in terms of ratio, the kinetic should be just about 30% whereas the non Kinetic should be 70% that is, what it should be..
As the military moves in and does what they need to do, if the police is incapable of doing that definitely as they move out, Something has to be done in terms of taking care of the immediate needs of such a community and after that, the government has to do the needful the problem we have is that most of these communities have been abandoned by the government for a very long time the borders have not been taken care of so the aim of even having the border community agencies has been defeated a long time ago that’s why you have within states, within local governments.
having all these cross border criminalities going on, so if government does its own bit by providing amenities for rural communities, that will stem the tide of insecurity and in doing so, you also empower the security agencies, to pay more attention to intelligence gathering to make sure that insecurity in such areas are checkmated.
Sen.Akobundu also give details about the change of leadership. Southern Senators forum said the forum had been existing and the ExCO had been operating says all what happened is change in leadership and was changed for the smooth running the Forum..
On the fear of state Governor hijacking the police,according to sen.Akobundu says, Nigeria has grow beyond that because those who are the brunt of criminalities are those who are operating in the state and rural areas. If the states are not stable, the federal government will not be stable why are they forming vigilante groups and inaugurating them? They are uniformed and armed? Was Amotekun used for electoral purposes last time? We are talking of something that is bigger than election, your life and my life, the lives of our children, our relations, the lives of Nigerians residing in communities that’s why I emphasized on community policing, it doesn’t have to be Nigerian police in whichever Variant it will come,provided it is legitimately put in place, It’s needed at this time, because most of these crimes are committed in communities. I think the crisis situation far outweighs the initial or original fears of our politicians, especially our governors hijacking the security apparatus that will be put in place when community policing comes also in place so we’ve gone past that, we need security.
