The Peoples Democratic Party in Abia State has advised Governor Alex Otti to tackle the increasing level of insecurity in the state.
The Vice Chairman of the state PDP, Abraham Amah, who made this call during an interview with our correspondent, noted that poverty was one of the causes of crime in Abia.
He said, “For me, security is important, but first and foremost, we should take care of those things that are responsible for insecurity.
“When people are poor, there will be a lot of security challenges in such a state or country.
“The governor has the responsibility to first and foremost address the economic situation in the state and tell the people of Abia State what he intends to do for them.
“The stoppage of fuel subsidy has led to higher inflation. We have seen the prices of goods and services going up every day and we have seen some actions taken by the Federal Government, even though we have yet to see the impacts of those actions.”
Reacting, the state chairman of the Labour Party, C.K. Igara, disagreed with the PDP in Abia, said the advice to the governor on security by the opposition was needless.
Igara said, “The call is needless. After all, we just inaugurated Operation Crush. Up till now, we are being proactive and he (Amah Abraham) may not know the level of criminality we have been able to curb as a result of that. As far as I am concerned, it is uncalled for.”
On other measures put in place by the state government to ensure criminality doesn’t escalate, Igara said, “Operation Crush is not an end, it is a process to the end.
“So, we are working on many variables on security and not something we can expose right now in order to catch the criminals unawares.
“There are many other steps. We cannot achieve any meaningful development without security. This is because our major focus is on developing the state. So, security is one of our key words and one of our key objectives.
“We are determined as a government. Since the inaugurating of Operation Crush, Abians have not heard of any one of them (criminals). I am quite happy with the level of development and level of security we have put in place.”
