A faction of Ohanaeze Ndigbo has urged Southeast governors to understudy the security blueprint of former governor of Imo State, Rochas Okorocha, for adoption to check rising insecurity in the zone.
President of the faction, Chidi Ibe, who spoke with selected journalists yesterday, insisted that the former governor was able to erect a formidable security structure that involved traditional rulers, town unions, youths, and other stakeholders at the grassroots, adding that the approach resulted in adequate security of the state.
According to him, the former governor, who is now representing Imo West in the Senate, engaged the people in the process of securing the state.
“What is required to nip in the bud the current security challenge in the zone is collaboration,” he said, adding that insecurity could not be defeated in isolation.
His words: “The creation of a regional security outfit by the Southeast governors is only tantamount to copying from other zones, forgetting that each of the zones has peculiar security challenges that require peculiar approaches.
“The governors should have engaged their predecessors in finding a lasting solution to the recent wave of insecurity in the zone, instead of announcing a security outfit just like their counterparts in other regions. They should understudy and adopt the security blueprint of Okorocha, where everyone was assigned a role in securing the state. The belief is that those behind the insecurity live among the people and can be fished out by the people.”
He blamed Governor Hope Uzodimma of Imo for trying to score cheap political points with the insecurity in the state. According to him, the governor failed to secure the state, “only to turn around to blame faceless politicians. He should consult Okorocha and other stakeholders on the way to go about the security challenges.”
Also, a retired Chief Superintendent of Police (CSP), Joachim Nzeh, enjoined the South East Governors’ Forum (SEGF) to research the measures and strategies implemented by Imo under Okorocha, which helped to reduce crime in the state from 2011 to 2019.
“There is definitely something strategic and highly effective about Okorocha’s ideas that drastically reduced the rate of violent crimes in Imo within the period he was governor. If you remember, Imo was almost going to blazes over insecurity before Okorocha was inaugurated as governor. There must have been something he did well, which I think the Southeast governors need to adopt to arrest this frightening descent into a state of anarchy in the entire South East,” he said.
Nzeh, who is now into private security consultancy, admitted that the situation in the zone was taking a dangerous dimension, but refused to blame the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).