Few hours after the Southeast region launched its joint security outfit codenamed EBUBE AGU, Abia State Governor, Okezie Ikpeazu, has explained why the governors took the drastic decision.
Ikpeazu, who spoke from Umuahia, the Abia State capital, during an interview on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics, said the new security outfit would oversee and monitor vigilante groups’ activities in the region.
“Today, we have come together to synergise and see how best we can protect lives and properties of citizens within this geopolitical zone,” he said.
“Security situation across Nigeria as it is today is dynamic. We are just trying to respond to our peculiar circumstances in the southeast.”
When asked if the new security outfit would bear arms and wear uniforms, Governor Ikpeazu neither confirmed nor denied it.
The Abia governor explained that he and his colleagues from Anambra, Imo, Ebonyi and Enugu would cooperate to ensure that operatives of EBUBE AGU would be properly equipped.
“Ebube Agu would be a security outfit both in name, purpose and action. It will be properly equipped. I want to assure you that all the states in the southeast already has various vigilante outfits.
“In Abia, we call our own ‘the Homeland Security outfit.’ In Enugu, it is called the Forest Guards. But we want to call for a harmonised synergised system of action to be able to compare notes to be able to set up digital platforms that can respond to communication challenges,” he added.
Speaking further, Ikpeazu said the new outfit would be rural-based, adding, “it is also going to be intelligence-based.
The governor also spoke on his administration’s strides in Abia, noting that the state since his assumption into office in 2015 “remains one of the safest states in Nigeria, and we have statistics to show for that.
His remarks come shortly after governors from the South East established a security outfit called EBUBE AGU as part of plans to checkmate the rising unrest in the region stemming from an increase in criminal activities.
According to a communique put out by governors of the southeast, the agency oversees and monitors vigilante groups’ activities in the region.
Chairman of the Southeast Governors Forum, Dave Umahi, who read the statement after a meeting in Imo State, noted that the EBUBE AGU security outfit’s headquarters would be in Enugu state.
