As Mbah Intensifies Crackdown on Criminality, Shores UP Investors’ Confidence

Governor Peter Mbah’s war against criminality, including the activation of the Enugu State law prescribing the demolition of any property linked to kidnapping is paying off in drastic crime reduction and surge in investments in the state, writes Gideon Arinze

Before he took over the reins of power in May 2023, Enugu State had battled with a huge share of security challenges, just like other states, especially given the rampant kidnapping for ransom and the notorious Monday sit-at-home enforced by whimsical and daredevil non-state actors. The combined activities of these criminals made life hellish, put the people under perpetual fear, set educational development back by decades, and paralysed socioeconomic activities.

The National Security Adviser, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, captured the pre-Peter Mbah security situation in Enugu during his visit to the state in December 2023. Ribadu said, “Before the coming of this administration, police stations were being attacked, law enforcement people were being attacked. People were giving selfish orders. Those who are not even in Nigeria will sit somewhere in the comfort of the countries where they live and be giving instructions, selfishly, that people should not go to work; that people should not go out to look for their own livelihood and people used to take such orders.”

However, Mbah had taken all those into consideration before he joined the governorship race and had set from day one to tackle insecurity headlong.

He has explained the prioritisation of security on several occasions. Having expressed a humongous vision to grow the state’s economy from N4.4bn to N30bn, achieve zero per cent poverty index, and make the state the premier destination for business, investment, tourism, and living; he believes that these could not be achieved without fixing the security challenges.

“We promised to move Enugu from a public sector to a private sector-driven economy. But with my private sector background, I have always maintained businesses are not Father Christmas. They are not philanthropies. They come to a location because they know there will be returns on their investments. So, it is for us to do everything we can to de-risk the environment to ensure returns on investments. Whether it is in terms of providing the enabling environment, providing the safe and secure environment, making sure that you have the basic infrastructure and that we help and work with you to succeed, we are ready to play our part,” the governor had reflected, once again, while receiving the management of Globus Bank, which was in Enugu to open the bank’s first branch in the state in October 2023, following improved security and restoration of Monday business in that part of the South East.

Little wonder upon assumption of office, Mbah banned the illegal sit-at-home, and working with the security agencies, rolled out the forces of state to deal with it. As of today, Enugu is one South East state that can beat its chest that non-state actors do hold any camp or base in its territory. He deployed technology crackdown on such violent criminals and kidnappers.

His administration is currently setting up a naval base in the coastal area of Ogurugu, Uzo Uwani LGA, in collaboration with the Nigerian Navy. He is also working with the Nigerian Army to establish Army barracks in Isi-Uzo LGA in the northern borders of Enugu  State. Mbah did not also waste time to activate the Enugu State Security Trust Fund Law and inaugurated the Board of Trustees.

He set up the Distress Response Squad, a special police unit with over a hundred cars fixed with AI-enabled cameras with facial and plate number  recognition. This squad and their technologies also will work in sync with the Security Command Centre regarded as one of the hallmarks of the Mbah Administration. The Command Centre is a technology-enabled platform offering real-time, round-the-clock surveillance of the major streets, neighbourhoods, and local government areas through AI-enabled CCTV cameras installed at strategic locations.

In fact, by his first six months, he made a huge impact that Ribadu during his aforementioned visit in December 2023 concluded by saying, “We were here in June and we had an interaction with the governor and he came out strongly and courageously. He said that he would do his best to restore order. Today, based on our own records and statistics, they are doing extremely down in Enugu State. Things have changed.”

However, the governor is not relenting, as he has intensified the war against kidnappers and violent criminals by activating Section 315 of the Criminal Code (Second Amendment) Law Cap. 30, Laws of Enugu State, which empowers the government to demolish any property linked to kidnapping. It provides that “If the building or structure owned by the offender or any other person, who knows or ought to reasonably know that the building or structure is so being used for that purpose, the building or structure shall be demolished or forfeited to the State Government.”

Unfortunately, this law had never been put to use since it was made in 2016. But in August, the Mbah dusted it up, beginning by demolishing a kidnappers’ den at Nkwubor, Ememe Nike, in the outskirts of Enugu metropolis. It was a purpose-built uncompleted storey-building with an underground tunnel. Seventeen firearms were recovered, including eight AK47 rifles, seven pump action rifles, and two short guns. Shrines, charms, and mini Indian hemp farms were also destroyed.

Among the property demolished on the same day was also a large modern farm at Ogbeke Nike with several farm houses where the kidnapped victims were rescued and two AK7 rifles, ammunition, and stolen cars were recovered during a raid.

Speaking to newsmen at the criminal hideout in Nkwubor, Emene Nike, Chairman of the Enugu Capital Territory Development Authority, ECTDA, Uche Anya, said, “The activities here were even more gruesome. You have seen the underground cell they built and covered it with a manhole. Ordinarily, you will think nothing is happening there, but the eagle eye of the security in the course of doing their work detected that something was amiss, only to discover that there’s an underground where human beings are kept and we found their armoury, many AK47 rifles and other crazy equipments that no civilian is entitled to hold. But, today, it went down as directed by the governor in accordance with the Laws of Enugu State.”

Earlier this October, the government also pulled down a duplex mansion at Amaebo Owelli (Owelli Court) in Awgu LGA used for keeping victims of kidnapping, which turned out to be the facility used by one of the only two criminals, who escaped alive during a gun duel with police during the raid on the farm at Ogbeke Nike.

“So, when the police moved to the place, every other person was arrested, but the kingpin, who had earlier escaped from Nike to Ebonyi. We tracked him to Ebonyi State, and he escaped to Lagos, where the Enugu State Government and the security agencies caught up with him. Several AK-47 rifles, semi-automatic weapons and all manners of ammunition; dozens of proscribed and offensive weapons were recovered,” Anya also explained to newsmen.

In this same October, the state government equally reduced to rubbles a twin semi-detached bungalow located at Nokpa, near Alulu, Nike serially used to house kidnapped persons. In this particular instance, they demanded N40m ransom.  The hit team handed over the victims to the gang at Nokpa and headed back to their stronghold somewhere in Imo State, not knowing that the security agencies were on their trail.

“Thank God for the sophisticated security infrastructure that Governor Mbah has procured for the state and thanks to the brilliance and bravery of the police crack squad, the gang was overpowered and arrested. They took the crack team to this notorious den. Members of their gang opened fire on the rescue team, but were equally overpowered and neutralised in the process. The captives were rescued, while automatic rifles in addition to other dangerous weapons, fetish objects, and hard drugs were recovered,” Anya, told newsmen.

Meanwhile, in doubling down on property linked to kidnapping, the government has warned landlords to do their due diligence before renting out their properties and remain vigilant afterwards to report any untoward happening in them.

Anya said, “Every landlord, once you put up a house in Enugu, we hold you responsible for any criminality that happens in your property; and once it becomes a violent crime, kidnapping, killing, armed robbery, we will take down the property in line with the law that was made by our predecessors. We will enforce it to the letter. The Enugu State Government will never accept it as an excuse: ‘I am in Australia’, ‘I am in America’, ‘My brother-in-law took people to my property.’”

In response to some opinions that such property should be converted to other good uses by the government, Anya declared, “The Enugu State Government does not want anything that will remind us of the deadly criminality. We do not need to acquire a criminal’s property to use it to serve the public. We bring it down and do our own thing. We do not want to profit from their criminality, and we do not want the criminals to nurse the illusion that they could ever reacquire them with time and through the backdoor,” he said.

But despite the successes recorded, the Mbah Administration is bent on pushing on. “This is open warfare and will not stop until we wipe out the remnant criminal elements and every vestige of them. So, this is also a warning to the remnants of criminal elements to relocate or meet their waterloo,” the ECTDA Chairman restated after the last demolition operation at Nokpa.

True to Governor Mbah’s projection, the state has witnessed a surge in investments and businesses since his assumption of office owing to the war on insecurity and massive infrastructural development. The state has attracted over N300bn just in the last three months, thus validating the saying that investments go where they feel safe.