Okowa, Wike, Obaseki, Others Agree To Replicate ‘Amotekun’ In South South

By Monday Osayande

The South South Governors met on Thursday in Asaba to unfold plans to establish security outfit to overcome the serious security challenges confronting the region.

 The Governors who met in closed doors for about two hours are to replicate Amotekun in the South-South with a view to secure lives and property in the region.

Chairman of the forum and governor of Delta State, Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa, told Journalists shortly after the meeting that the decision to have the security outfit was all embracing.

At the meeting attended by Governors Doure Diri (Bayelsa), Nyeson Wike (Rivers), Emmanuel Udom (Akwa Ibom), Godwin Obaseki (Edo) and the host, Ifeanyi Okowa, Delta; the Governor’s forum Chairman said they are also going to look critically into economy of the region.

He said, “Today, five governors region have taken far reach decisions to bring back the BRACED commission which we have charged the chairman of the commission, Ambassador Joel Keshi to work out for the modality and detail for the take off of the security outfit.

“You aware that this BRACED commission had been in existence for the past ten years but over five years it has been dormant and now we decided to revive it, to handle the issue of insecurity and other things in our region”

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Okowa revealed that the governors in the region would meet with President Muhammadu Buhari  to discuss ways to remove the 13% derivation first from the federation account for oil producing state before sharing to the three tiers of governments.

On the spread of Coronavirous, Okowa said that the region has resolved to harmonized their strategy to curtail the spread, and Lassa fever in the region.

“We also took other decisions concerning Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) and the need to insist that 13 per cent Derivation must first be taken out of the funds that come from oil before the rest of the funds is shared at FAAC.

“The 13 per cent is supposed to be for the oil-producing states and that has not been the situation for a very long time and we agreed as Governors, to take up this matter at the appropriate levels.

“We also took a decision on Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) and the need to urge President Muhammadu Buhari to constitute the Advisory Board of the Commission because it has a major role to play, though in an advisory capacity.

“This is because we believe that there is a need to reposition NDDC to take on regional projects rather than small projects, and this we are going to pursue as quickly as possible”, Okowa added.