Defence chief to Peter Mbah: Your security measures sync with our efforts, we’ll support you

Lucky Irabor, chief of defence staff, says the Nigerian military will provide needed support to the Enugu government to counter insecurity facing the state. 

Irabor spoke on Tuesday during a meeting with Peter Mba, governor of the state, and critical stakeholders at the government house in Enugu.

The defence chief said the Nigerian military hierarchy was impressed by the bold security measures so far taken by the governor.

Irabor assured the governor that the military would play its part in encouraging the socioeconomic development of the state by enhancing internal security.

“Your bold statement on security synchronises with our efforts towards ending insecurity. We came to appreciate you for that and to let you know that such steps fall within our purview and that every stakeholder will support it,” Irabor said. 

“We are here to assure you the armed forces and security agencies will give you all the needed support.”

Speaking at the meeting, Mba said insecurity may hinder the state’s plan of growing the economy from $4.4 billion to $30 billion.

The governor said Irabor’s visit to the state and other tough decisions being made by his administration would ensure a secure society which would improve the indicators of the ease of doing business.

“We promised our people that we are going to do things differently, growing our economy in an unprecedented way from $4.4 billion to $30 billion. But this requires making tough decisions,” the governor said. 

“We identified the elephant in the room, being insecurity, and its impact, both psychologically, economically, and socially on our people.

“We can’t adopt the present financing model if we must grow the economy exponentially. It has to be private sector driven and one of the indicators of that is security. We have to secure our state and ensure our people work five days a week in order to convince them of our state’s viability.”