Governor Peter Ndubuisi Mbah of Enugu State on Tuesday, July 11, asked for collaboration with the Nigerian Navy to tackle the menace of insecurity in the state and Southeast region in general. 

Mbah revealed this during a courtesy visit to the Chief of Naval Staff (CNS), Rear Adm. Emmanuel Ogalla at the Naval Headquarters in Abuja.

According to Governor Mbah, the visit was to identify with the naval chief who is from Enugu and also appreciate President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for the honor of appointing a son of the state as CNS.

Mbah hinted that his administration had outlined measures to achieve exponential growth in the state through sound economic policies, adding that such policies could only succeed in a secured and peaceful environment.

He however, called on the Nigerian navy to expand its operational activities to the state, adding that his administration is ready to Partner with the Navy to put an end to insecurity in the South East.

“If we must deal with the root causes of insecurity, we must adopt both kinetic and non-kinetic approaches to dealing with insecurity and we felt that the big elephant in the room was to address those activities that may be an inhibition to bringing in investors to our state.

“We needed to heighten our security architecture and to mobilize all the security agencies in our state to be able to deal with this, and thus far we are getting the required support we need from the various security agencies.

“We are also hoping that we are going to invite the Navy on board to join hands with us to be able to deal with these big elephants in the room,” he asserted.

Responding, the CNS, Rear Adm. Ogalla, affirms that the relationship between the Nigerian navy and other stakeholders like state governments had been instrumental to the successes they have been achieving.

He noted that the current security challenges facing Nigeria required the whole of government approach, stating that the navy had extended its operations to cover a good part of the region.