May 18, (THEWILL) – The Council Chairmen in Ebonyi State have declared that Ebonyi State, under Governor Francis Nwifuru, remains the only state in southeast Nigeria that is free from incidents of kidnapping, due to the security architecture put in place by the state government.
The council chairmen of Ebonyi, Ivo and Ohaukwu local government areas, Prince Uburu Chinedu, Ajah Emmanuel and Odono Ikechukwu, respectively, disclosed this over the weekend in an interview with THEWILL in Abakaliki, the Ebonyi State capital.
They commended Governor Francis Nwifuru for providing an enabling environment for Council Chairmen to operate optimally.
According to the council chairmen, the governor has massively empowered the youths of the state, appointed so many youths into governance, built palaces for traditional rulers, sponsored Ebonyi students on overseas scholarships and constructed 2-kilometre roads in all the autonomous communities of Ebonyi State.
Speaking during the interview, Hon Prince Ikechukwu Odono said the two years of Francis Nwifuru have recorded giant strides in the area of security and infrastructural rebirth.
“In terms of security, everybody can testify that in Ebonyi State, we have enough security. We sleep with our two eyes closed, not like other states. We don’t see kidnapping in Ebonyi State.
“Because where there is security, people can move around. Ebonyi State is one of the states in Nigeria that can boast that there is security. You can come and relax and be free to walk around in Ebonyi both day and night.
“The Governor has done very well within these two years, so many youths have been appointed into his government, within these two years, people like us came back to office for a second term.
“The Governor has built palaces for the Royal Highnesses in Ebonyi State, and also a two-kilometre road for every community. Within these two years, the Governor has touched lives by sponsoring students for overseas scholarships, with over 200 youths benefiting from it.
“He has empowered the youths by giving two million Naira to some of them to improve their businesses. And, I tell you, just the last two weeks, the Governor was in Ohaukwu local government for the construction of a 24-kilometre road.
“The local government is constructing a two-kilometre road, concrete pavement, bridges, and some other things, the local government is doing in the enabling environment that the Governor gave us to perform.
Prince Uburu Chinedu, Chairman of Ebonyi local government area and the Chairman of Association of Local Government Employee of Nigeria(ALOGON), disclosed that when they were elected as chairman, there was a crisis in the local areas due to who would become the leaders of various town unions.
He, however, said that the Nwifuru administration has provided a platform for a free and fair process of electing leaders in various communities of the state, which he said has engendered peace throughout the state.
He said, “When we came on board, there were so many crises in some of the villages. What was the crisis? We found out that some of the people who were in government then believed in the imposition of candidates. For instance, there is no problem that will start without first starting from the villages.
“The first ones are at the village level. So what they normally do is whenever they have an interest in a particular village, they go there and install village heads with leaders and all that. When we came on board, we said no.
“It would be good for the villagers to elect who will be their leader. And in so doing, we have been able to at least get that. Because if, for instance, you have the security of the village, there is no way an external body will come into the village without the villagers letting you know.
“So this we did and extended it to various communities. We now went back to the village and inaugurated security vigilantes in some of these villages. Their work is to alert the community whenever there is a funny movement or whenever there is a strange face in the village. So they alert the community, and the community in turn gets in touch with the local government.
So this has helped us in so many ways. Keeping and making sure that there is absolute security in the various localities, communities and local governments.
“And this we did across the whole of Ebonyi state. That is why sometimes we hear people say that Ebonyi is the safest state in the South East. And we give kudos to His Excellency the Governor because he has always provided us with all the logistics. He is doing a lot in the security architecture of Ebonyi State. He is someone who likes security. He is someone who prioritises everything that has to do with security.
Moreover, the Chairman of Ivo Local Government Area, Hon. Ajah Emmanuel, stated that the issue of insecurity in his council area is a thing of the past.
“Today, insecurity in the Ivo local government area is a thing of the past. It is no longer the time when you hear this and hear that, and it is not the time when we have a lot of crises.
“Ivo in the past was known for communal crises, but we have made sure there is no crisis in the entire local government area. There is no insecurity again. First of all, I brought all the stakeholders together. And we together worked for the peace in Ivo”, he said.
Sunday Ogbu is a professional journalist with eight - twelve years experience that had worked with various print and online media. Sunday specializes in news reporting with the aim of educating his readers on current social, political and economic occurences within his area of coverage. Sunday is a strong force to work with in the media industry and uses his positive attitude and tireless energy to encourage others to work hard and succeed. Sunday is inspired daily by his wife and their four children. In his free time, Sunday likes sight-seeing, reading and discussing issues of societal interest.
