Mike Odiegwu, Port Harcourt
South-South leaders have thrown their weight behind the decision of their governors to float a regional security network amidst heightened insecurity across the country.
South-South governors met at Asaba, Delta State capital, on Thursday and resolved to create a regional security outfit like the Amotekun in the South West to deal with challenges of insecurity in the area.
Present at the gathering were the Chairman of the South-South Governors’ Forum and Delta State Governor, Senator Ifeanyi Okowa; governors of Bayelsa, Senator Douye Diri; Edo, Godwin Obaseki; Rivers, Nyesom Wike and Akwa Ibom, Emmanuel Udom.
While referring to the move as long overdue, the South-South leaders, who spoke on the initiative said it was a welcome development.
Most of them listed kidnapping, herdsmen menace, cultism, militancy, proliferation of light weapons, sea piracy, pipeline vandalism and oil theft as disturbing security challenges that such regional outfit should deal with.
The Secretary-General of the Ijaw Youths Council (IYC) Worldwide, Alfred Kemepado, said the regional security outfit would help provide maritime security and stop the criminal activities of pipeline vandals and oil thieves.
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Kemepado said: “The governors of the South-south should have come up with this type of security measures long ago to protect our water territory especially against pipeline vandalism and other oil theft activities.
“This goes back to emphasise our long cry for the restructuring of the Nigerian state not to the advantage of any particular region but to make Nigeria a more viable project.
The Federal Government from Abuja is too small to police the large Nigeria that it controls. It can only effectively do that by decentralizing most of its powers.
“The South-south governors should not just stop at the formation and the funding of the regional security outfit, they should also task oil multinationals operating in this environment who will be the major beneficiaries of this initiative to also contribute to a security trust fund as it is in Lagos to ensure that the security outfit is productive.”
Kemepado advised that the governors should put measures in place to protect such security outfit from abuse insisting that the outfit must focus on the purpose of its creation.
He, however, said for such security outfit to achieve its purpose, there must be a deliberate policy to create economic empowerment for the people through the BRACED commission.
He said: “The governors should also ensure that this security outfit is not abused. It is easier for this outfit to be abused in this area because of the amount of light weapons littered in this environment.
“It should focus on the purpose of its creation which is to safeguard lives and properties, stop invasion of herdsmen, stop pipeline vandalism and other militant activities.
They should also think about developing the BRACED commission because you can’t talk about security without talking about economic development of the people. Without economic development, there will be no security anywhere.
A vocal Niger Delta activist and founder, Niger Delta Self Determination Movement (NDSDM), Annkio Briggs, said her letter to the Niger Delta governors dated February 19, 2020, triggered the governors’ decision to form a regional security outfit.
In the letter, which was principally addressed to Okowa, the activist said the NDSDM watched with trepidation the deteriorating security situation across the country and the herdsmen menace especially in Delta State.
“Only recently, some communities in Delta State were attacked by killer herdsmen, who continued to be emboldened to commit more atrocities as the security agencies look the other way or sometimes overwhelmed by the sheer volume of the attacks.
“The NDSDM in all sincerity can no longer trust the established security agencies to protect our people as they have shown a high level of complicity and sometimes outright connivance with the killer herdsmen to attack, kill, kidnap, rape, molest and terrorise our people.
In his submission, the Leader of the Niger Delta Youth Coalition for Peace and Progress (NDYCPP), Kennedy Tonjo-West, said the plan by the governors to set up a regional security outfit was a step in the right direction.
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