The Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki has said that Nigerians have no other choice than to work collectively to rescue the nation from insecurity and other challenges.
Obaseki said this on Tuesday in Benin while receiving members of the South-South Zone Working Committee of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) led by its National Vice Chairman, South-south, Chief Dan Orbih.
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While identifying insecurity as one of the country’s biggest challenges, Obaseki blamed mismanagement of the nation’s economy for the worrisome trend.
“The way the ruling party has managed and mismanaged the economy of this country is the reason why we are having the level of insecurity that we are facing today. The lawlessness, indiscipline by the ruling party has brought us to where we are.
“We should not lose hope in Nigeria but focus on how to create confidence to give our people hope by managing the country well. The challenges of insecurity just show the dysfunctionality of our federal system.
“We run a federation; we have three tiers of government: Federal, State and Local Governments. Why should security be exclusive to the federal level? What happened to the other two? Until we address that structural imbalance, we are not going to be able to deal with security at its core.”
Only PDP can help
He noted that it is only the PDP that can help the president solve the problem but not his party.
“Let us as party men and Nigerians help rescue the nation and call on those that have the capacity to rescue Nigeria. Security is local and we can rescue this nation; that is why Edo is relatively peaceful,”
“In the South-South, we must stand up to defend ourselves economically, politically and security wise. We have pretenders in the region who try to exploit the region and we must stop them.
Earlier, Orbih stressed the need for the region to have its own security network to check insecurity and protect the people in the region.
“We appeal to you to lead the stand for state policing. It’s time to rejig the security architecture of Nigeria. We urge you to lend your voice to the struggle to make the country safe for all.”