Mbah Pledges to Strengthen Community Policing, Deploy Technology in Fighting Insecurity

Gideon Arinze in Enugu

The governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Enugu State, Dr. Peter Mbah has assured that his administration would strengthen community policing and deploy technology in fighting insecurity as part of efforts to make the state an economic destination.
Mbah, also said if given the opportunity, his administration would also organise the Enugu State Investors Forum geared towards engaging private sector investors within his first 100 days in office, as part of measures to move the state’s economy from a public sector to a private sector driven economy.

Mbah, who made this known yesterday, during an interview monitored on Solid FM’s ‘Freedom Square’ programme, said he remains committed to growing the economy of Enugu State from $4.4 billion to $30 billion.
He, however, noted that part of what was responsible for the fragilities and insecurities across communities in the state were largely unemployment and poverty, hence he has identified programmes in the productive sector that would accelerate employment.
“We can’t talk about sustainable development without security,” he said.

“We believe that if we can productively engage our youths, then we are able to address these challenges of insecurity effectively. We have an integrated sector programme that would ensure the acceleration of youth employment,” he added.
Speaking further, he said, “If we are able to productively engage our youths, especially across communities where most of the crimes take place, we will have achieved 70 per cent of the problem.”

He also said his administration would explore the vast mineral resources in the state, including coal, to grow the state’s economy, adding that in a bid to open up rural communities for economic development, he would construct 10,000 kilometres of road across the 260 wards in the state.
“We want to make Enugu the food basket of Nigeria and the export hub of agriculture and this will also include setting up special agro-allied processing zones across the three senatorial zones in the state,” he said.

On the challenge of perennial water scarcity in the state, he said his administration would work with the Enugu Electricity Distribution Company (EEDC), to provide sufficient power supply for the various water schemes and make sure that there is adequate water supply to residents.

“It is not rocket science because we know what we need to meet the daily water consumption of the people which is around 100,000 cubic metres” he said. “We will ensure that rural dwellers are not left out of the scheme of things because for us water is life.”