Imo State Governor, Hope Uzodimma, on Thursday, said he does
not operate the contentious ‘Security Vote’.
Rather, he said he has made a case for state governors to be
given more freedom to tackle security challenges at sub-national levels,
collaborating with the nation’s federal structure.
The governor bared his mind, shortly after he met behind
closed doors with President Bola Tinubu, at the Presidential Villa Abuja to
seek an appointment for southeast leaders and Ohaneze Ndigbo to meet the
president over unrelenting insecurity in the region.
Recall that while the federal government continues to detain
the proscribed leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra IPOB, Nnamdi Kanu the
South East has witnessed unrest owing to the sit-at-home directive still being
enforced.
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.
Moreover, Uzodimma pointed out that the people of southeast
believe in the unity of Nigeria and like other regions, deserve the federal
government’s support to enable them live their daily lives and go about their
businesses.
He declined to give details of what the southeast leaders
would be demanding from Tinubu when the meeting holds, but lamented that
non-state actors have utilised fear and indiscriminate killings and brigandage
to enforce an illegal sit-at-home on some days in the region.
According to him, the problem had also become an issue of
“perception management”, even as he pointed out that international diplomacy,
which is also part of the solution, is beyond the purview of State Governors.
Asked about the claim by former Nigeria Delta militant,
Asari Dokubo, that his men were helping the federal government tackle
insecurity in the southeast, Uzodimma replied that he was not aware of such,
and can’t identify who are ‘Dokubo’s men’.
He also noted that because of the federal structure of the
country, state governors are not at liberty to choose or reject security
measures decided by the Federal Government.
The governor further highlighted the flooding ravaging the
Southeast, declaring that a recent hydrographic survey shows that the huge cost
of remedying the situation may be beyond the capabilities of state governments.
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