From Magnus Eze, Enugu
Disturbed by the renewed orgy of killings and violence going on in parts of South East, especially Anambra State, Governors of the five states in the zone and the leadership of Ohanaeze Ndigbo will meet in Enugu tomorrow.
Also invited for the meeting are leaders and heads of some religious and traditional institutions.
Governor of Ebonyi State, David Umahi who is also Chairman of the South East Governors’ Forum called the meeting.
A memo from Umahi which Daily Sun sighted slated the meeting by noon at the Enugu State Government House (Lion Building), Independence Layout, Enugu.
The governor appealed to his colleagues to endeavour to be physically present at the all-important meeting and not send representation.
He wrote: “Your Excellencies and our highly esteemed leaders, in consultation with our Governors and President of Ohanaeze Worldwide, where a decision for an urgent meeting to be called was reached, may I, therefore, invite you for an emergency meeting of Southeast Governors, some leaders of Ohanaeze, some of our political leaders, some of our religious leaders and some of our traditional leaders.
“Our leaders begged that I request all Governors of Southeast to please be present at the time and not on representative capacity so that together we should reach some decisions to salvage our region that is presently battling with high rate of insecurity.
“May I therefore request that you please endeavour to attend this meeting for the sake of Ndigbo.”
There has been concerns over the delay by most of the governors to inaugurate the regional security outfit, Ebubeagu, in their states. Ebonyi State appears to be the only place where the Ebubeagu outfit is operational, months after the August body floated it at a meeting in Owerri, Imo State.
President General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Prof George Obiozor, last week, condemned the delay by the governors.
In his statement commemorating this year’s Igbo Day celebration, Obiozor said: “To the South-East Governors, the delay in launching Ebubeagu security outfit is an embarrassment. I strongly appeal to the Governors without further hesitation to consolidate and launch Ebubeagu security architecture in the South-East. The security situation in the South-East makes this call urgent and imperative. Our people must have a security networking agency that is under their control and capable of identifying both internal and external security threats in Igbo land.”