By Aja N. Aja
It was Martha Beck, the American author, who aptly stated that when fear makes the choices for you, no security measures on earth will keep the things you dread from finding you. This sums up the apprehension that envelops the Southeast every Monday when the so-called auto pilot set up by Simon Ekpa runs amok in the land. Citizens are strung between the devil and the deep blue as the need to go out and make a living contends with the morbid fear instigated by the demonic reign of the not-so-unknown gunmen.
A sit-at-home is more like a hunger strike than civil disobedience. It is not a product of force or coercion. It is willful and intended to inflict some deprivation on the selves in order to make political points. It is in this context that a gang of criminals strutting the Southeast every Monday and purportedly enforcing the sit-at-home is as inconsistent with the very nature of the phenomenon as it is an insult to the very core of the Republican nature of the Igbo man.
Biafra has morphed beyond the reductionism of a geographical expression. It is more fundamentally a struggle for equity, a cry for freedom within the Nigerian federation. It is Biafra when the people from the Middlebelt seek to unyoke themselves from the marauding influence of herdsmen; it is Biafra where Niger Deltans seek to benefit from the resource under their soil. I am inclined to identify more with a Biafra of the mind rather than a felonious attack on the foundation of our federation.
Let me cut to the chase; no member of the 2023 class of governors from the Southeast has impressed me with respect to internal security as much as Barrister Peter Ndubuisi Mbah who has showed uncommon courage in tackling this cancerous descent into domestic anarchy. Coming as a private sector beacon, it is not surprising that he identified early enough the place of a vibrant economy in his development paradigm. With an ambitious plan to steamroll Enugu to a 30 billion dollar economy from the meager 4.4 billion dollar economic wasteland he inherited, he enlisted the understanding of relevant stakeholders in a bid to build a coalition of the willing against the festering orgy of violence. Knowing that a solid relationship with the security establishment as well as incubating fresh local ideas would help immensely in this direction, His Excellency forged a synergy between the security agencies and the populace that has to a large extent enhanced the confidence of the generality of Ndi Enugu which has manifested in the people standing behind their chief executive to deny the criminals space and therefore restore Enugu State as the glory of the East.
Enugu thrives even on Mondays. As a largely civil service state, economic activities which had hitherto been stifled have picked up, night life has returned and the economic fortunes of the people have been enhanced. It is also worthy of note that with the appointment of a son of the soil as the Chief of Naval Staff, much is expected from Enugu as a stable reference point to economic prosperity and general wellbeing of the people.
The citizens must therefore respond with every fervor to the clarion from the Lions Building to participate actively in managing the security of their communities. They must understand that they remain the basic unit of information gathering, and therefore are indispensable in the process of making Enugu safe as a viable investment destination. His Excellency has extended a hand of friendship towards building a society where every citizen is free to live fruitfully without let or hindrance.
By Aja N Aja, esq writes from
Abuja
