Dickson says there’s a lot unnecessary controversy over $1bn insurgency fund

Seriake Dickson, governor of Bayelsa state, says there is a lot of unnecessary controversy over the $1 billion approved to fight  insurgency.

Governors of the 36 states were said to have endorsed the plan but Ayo Fayose of Ekiti has denied any involvement in the approval.

He even filed a suit before a federal high court in Abuja, challenging the decision of his colleagues to agree that the money should be taken from the excess crude account.

Addressing state house correspondents on Thursday, Dickson said the approval was not political but meant to strengthen the country’s security apparatus.

“There is a lot of unnecessary controversy out there in the media,” he said.

“It was a decision taken in good fate to support our security services, to strengthen our national security and enhance operations in the interest of everybody else,” he said.

“This is not a political issue and I thought that I should say that, but the details of what we would do and say and the clarifications will come at the end of the meeting of the governors.”

Dickson said that the governors would meet later in the day to fine tune how to move the matter further.

“After the meeting this afternoon, our chairman and some of us may have to talk to the media, may have the need to interact with the president and the vice-president on it,” he said.

“These are issues of national security and I think that we leaders must be circumspect in terms of creating controversies on issues of national security.

“Our duty is to collaborate among ourselves, collaborate with the federal government on two critical issues of national security and issues of the economy, and that is what the national economic council (NEC) does.”