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The South East governors have been enjoined to jointly address the economic and security challenges facing the region. Prominent leaders from the zone gave the advice at the 2023 South East Summit on Economy and Security held recently in Owerri, Imo State. Speakers at the summit, which was attended by the five governors of the South East and other leaders in the region agreed that the governors must work as a team in tackling the economic and security challenges in the region. In other words, a regional approach to resolving the problems of the region and achieving lasting peace is more realistic than each state doing it alone.
In her keynote address at the summit, the Director-General of the World Trade Centre (WTC), Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, stated that the governors of the region must work hard to jointly address its rising economic and security challenges. According to her, “we have lost focus. We have lost sight of our biggest community assets. We are fragmented as a people. We don’t support each other. Instead, we attack and undermine each other. We are too individualistic. An individual can be good but not better than when we come together as a body.”
The WTC boss spoke further on the imperative of security and development in the South East region. She succinctly argued: “We cannot have development without security; we cannot have security without development, but to have both, we need good governance.” In the same vein, the former Senate President and ex-Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Anyim Pius Anyim, lamented that insecurity and sit-at-home orders had negatively impacted the South East region. He advised that robust discussions with the agitators would ensure lasting solutions to the spate of insecurity plaguing the region. Others, who spoke at the event, called for diverse approaches to resolving the security and economic challenges of the zone, including having a common security command and control centre and inter-agency cooperation.
We commend the South East governors and other leaders for charting the way forward for the region. The new unity among the Igbo political leaders is laudable. We urge that it will be sustained. The governors of the five states in the region must come up with a joint template to tackle the economic and security challenges of the region. They can revisit the moribund Niger Cement Factory at Nkalagu and resuscitate it.
They can jointly set up regional industries as was the case in the defunct Eastern region under Dr. M.I. Okpara. The major cities in the region should be linked with railway for quicker movement of people and goods. They can have a regional power generating and supply company.
The industrialisation of the South East region is attainable and they can do it. Although there are so many factors driving the current insecurity in the region, unemployment is one major factor fueling it. If the governors can frontally address unemployment, the rest can easily be solved. The ongoing bloodletting in the region is barbaric and must be quickly addressed.
It is equally good that the South East leaders at the Owerri Summit spoke passionately on how to tackle the lingering economic and security challenges of the zone. For the first time in recent years, the politicians from the zone looked beyond their political differences to brainstorm on the ways to move the region forward. Identifying the problems holding the region down is a step towards solving them.
The resolve by the governors of the five states of the zone and Ohanaeze Ndigbo leadership to end insecurity in the region is gladdening. It is now time to walk the talk. There is need to fully implement the resolutions at the meeting. The summit should not be a mere talk-shop. Let the leaders come up with the blue prints to actualise the agreements at the forum. Without security, there cannot be meaningful development.
We urge elected leaders in the zone to deliver good governance to the people. The governors should have plans to create massive jobs for the restive youths. There must be an end to the bloodbath in the region.
