The collaboration among the South-South Governors is on the verge of giving birth to a new security outfit that would partner with the Police and other security agencies. Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State, who also doubles as the Chairman of the region’s Governors Forum, reveals in an interview monitored by
GOODNESS AGBO for NATIONAL ECONOMY.
Name Of Security Outfit
We have not actually come out with a name yet but we took a long discussion on the issue of having regional security and we have asked the BRACED Commission to work out the details and to brief us as quickly as possible.
The Importance
Actually, most of the governors in the South-south region have been working individually at the state level, to curb the various security challenges that we have. But we thought that it would be best as a region if we came together to collaborate with ourselves, especially when we realise that we share boundaries. Talking about the issue of herdsmen/farmers clashes, they come through similar routes. They come from one state and can progress to another. Also on the issue of kidnapping which has been a very troubling challenge at the moment, you find people who operate probably in Edo State and before you know it they are in Delta, and in the next couple of days they are operating in Rivers State and it goes that way. So we thought that if we are able to start a regional security outfit, we will be able to co-monitor and co-share information. We will work along with the security agencies and put the initial processes that we have as individual states which will be managed as a regional outfit in such a manner that it will become more productive.
Considering the nature of the region, the terrain is quite different from what we have in other zones, are you considering different templates for managing the situation?
The Terrain Challenge
Obviously, we are going to have different templates for managing it. It is holistic management. When you come into the waterways, the things that tend to confront you more are sea piracy and bunkering, and of course, it’s a different approach in such cases. But the issue is that we will share information and security communication among our various security agencies and communications among our youths who will also help to give us a lot of intelligence.
Criticism Of Your Motive
The fact is that whatever you do, even when you mean the best for our states and the nation, you will always have a segment of people who turn it into politics and something to criticise you about. But as governors, we are to do things in the best interest of the states and the best interest of the larger majority of the people. We cannot stop people from playing politics out of whatever we do. No matter how right you have it, even if you construct a good road to somebody’s home on account of politics, he will criticise you. So we are not going to be deterred by the criticisms of some group of people. We are elected as governors to do the best we can to secure our people and to bring development to our people and that is exactly what we are doing and we do not have to take permissions from anybody to do what we want to do. As long as we are convinced that, having sat in a meeting, we are fully convinced that there is a need to share security approach and the need to support the security agencies to support them with the civilian outfit that we have in whatever name that you call it so that collaboratively, we can truly become more efficient. The police and the military already agreed that there is a lot the states are doing individually and that we have been able to bring out youths within our communities who are able to help our system at the moment in bringing out information, gather intelligence and also link them up with where they have to go to, especially in the riverine areas. So they are quite happy with what we are doing. So when we collaboratively working as six states within the South-south region. I believe that we will definitely achieve better results than what we are achieving as individual states. So we are convinced and we are going ahead to do what we think is right for our people.
Poverty In The Region
Definitely yes. I believe that in the last four years he has done that, I can speak for most of my colleagues and also speak for my state. We do know that poverty has continued to create a situation in which people don’t find food on their table and a lot of people are beginning to take to criminality. We are doing all kinds of things as governors to try to engage our youths, it is not easy because the finances of the nation is still down and the finances of the states have also been equally so badly affected. But a lot is being done. Just as we have various empowerment programmes to engage our youths. I am aware that in all the states, youths are being engaged in agriculture and entrepreneurial programmes. These are running in all the states and in my state particularly, I am very much aware of that. Beyond that, we are beginning to look more into technical education where we are going to continually ensure that our children acquire some skills and not just the paperwork in terms of education. We are looking into several means of empowering not just the young boys out of school. We are also empowering the girl-child and our women. These programmes are designed to begin to take people out of poverty. We definitely need a lot more years to begin to take people out of poverty. We came in 2015. You are very much aware that in the first two years after we came in, it was very difficult because of the recession. If people believe that we can just rework the economy within just two years out of recession, then we may not be telling ourselves the truth. So we are mindful of this and as we continue with the programmes that we are doing to be able to engage many more youths. We must continue also to tackle the level of insecurity that we have. Unfortunately, the issue of the farmers/herders clash that is coming now is actually something very different from the poverty that we find within our people. You find that most of the people that rear cattle are not from the South-South region of the country. That also is creating a lot of problems for us. We are dealing with it in many ways and that is why we also believe that in working together, we can handle issues like this a lot better than we are doing at the moment. And when you talk about the issue of piracy, some of our boys are hungry out there. But we are doing everything to engage them and we do not believe that criminality is the way out in trying to solve the problem of poverty. It ought not to be.
BRACED Commission
Talking about the BRACED Commission, it is a functional Secretariat or what you call the working secretariat for the governors’ forum of the region because the governors constitute the BRACED Governing Council. We are restarting it. It was created in 2010 and it worked up to 2014 and it was slowed down. Unfortunately, I don’t want to look at the issues, but we have realised the importance of the Braced Commission to be able to deal with the issues of insecurity, economy, agricultural development and other sectors of the economy. The secretariat is supposed to rework the programmes of the various states and find out how we are going to collaborate with ourselves to bring out the best of the states and the region. So we are definitely going to support the director-general and his team to function better. We are also lucky that a lot of work has been done in the past. So, it is for us to put that work into action and that’s exactly what we are doing.
Concerning security, in our various states, we work very well with the various security agencies in our states. Everybody knows that. Somebody like the Inspector General of Police has been talking about Community Policing because the security agencies have realised that they can’t work effectively without the civil society or the civilians themselves. So, they realised that this collaboration is in the best interest of our various states and in the best interest of our nation and when we have worked out the details, we will approach Mr. President and let him know what we are going to do. It is not going to be a question of hyping what is going to be done. It is going to be done in the best interest of the nation and in the best interest of the states in the South-south region as well as the best interest of most of us who produce oil. It will also help us to secure our oil facilities more. So it’s a holistic arrangement and that’s why we have asked the BRACED Commission to put this together very quickly and then we propose another meeting, take the details and move on to see that what is right is done.
