South East Governors’ Forum sets up committee to boost economy

The South East Governors’ Forum has set up a 10 member committee to fashion out ways to integrate and boost economy of the zone. The Chairman of the forum, Gov. Dave Umahi of Ebonyi, disclosed this  to newsmen in Enugu on Sunday at the end of its meeting. Umahi said that the committee made up of two representatives each from the five states of Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo states in the zone, would present its report at the next meeting of the forum. “We have mandated the committee to meet and fashion out road map towards our economic integration. “This, the committee will do in coming weeks and present our economic indices and development route in our next meeting. “We equally agreed to meet with all stakeholders in the zone to discuss and address all issues of interest to our people,” he said. He said that the activities of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB), Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) and others were also discussed. “We discussed the issue of IPOB, MASSOB, Nnamdi Kanu’s detention, ecological problems of South East and various water dams that have been abandoned in the zone. “Other challenges such as power, security and other very many concerns of our people were also discussed and we agreed to immediately meet with the various and appropriate authorities to address them,” he said. Umahi said that the governors were committed to addressing the challenges and had already initiated action on them. He said that the meeting was so crucial that they agreed to attend in persons instead of sending representations. “To underscore the importance of this meeting, we decided to attend in our capacities as governors,” he said. The chairman said that the secretariat of the forum in Enugu had become fully functional adding that the governors could be contacted through the secretariat at the government house in Enugu. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that all the governors in the zone except Gov. Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia,  could not attend because of delayed flight from Lagos.