There was not much insecurity in Ebonyi until I defected to APC – Gov Umahi  

Governor Dave Umahi of Ebonyi State has stated that there were not many cases of insecurity in Ebonyi State until the time he defected from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC). He emphasized that insecurity in southeast was previously target at Imo State and the APC, adding that Ebonyi State became included after his defection to the APC. The governor further said that more people engage in insecurity in the southeast are from the region not external. He added that the insecurity is politically instigated by the comments of political actors in the southeast.

According to Umahi, “In my state, there was a time that the insecurity was highly politically motivated and the targets were Imo State, APC, and Ebonyi State the moment I defected.

“We did not have this large scale of insecurity until I defected.”

Governor Umahi, a presidential aspirant on the APC platform, said that President Muhammadu Buhari has been doing well in dealing with the insecurity crisis, saying that the situation would have been worse, fi not for Buhari.

Umahi had stated: “…the security situation in the country, as I have always told people, that if we did not have the kind of President that is very humane and not vindictive, nobody knows where Nigeria would have been by now.

“So, he has helped us tremendously in the security of the Southeast.

“What I call bandits are people that are engaged in violence and our people, Southeast people; the youths, some of them are also in this category.

“When people tend to say the insecurity in the southeast is imported, I don’t buy that because I am a governor and get security reports. We have arrested a number of these people and it should be about five or ten percent of the people outside the Southeast.

“So, you cannot say when you have up to 90 percent of our youths that are engaged in this thing and you say we are being infiltrated by others.”

The governor maintained: “There are certain statements that we make as leaders that tend to elevate this insecurity.”

Umahi stated that the solution to insecurity in Nigeria is job creation and development of infrastructure, saying that his administration is already doing that in Ebonyi.

According to Umahi, “Everywhere you go in my state, jobs are going on… There is no local government in my state that projects are not going on.”