By Eberechi Obinagwam
Members and staff of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, (PENGASSAN), has made a demand for the declaration of a state of emergency and a total overhaul of all the security apparatus in Kaduna and Plateau States to wipe out all criminal elements especially in Southern Kaduna.
PENGASSAN also Demands that the states be empowered with a special police force that will enable them to take charge of security issues in their domains as the era of centralized policing is outdated.
The president, comrade Festus Osifo, and general secretary, comrade Lumumba. I. Okugbawa, stated this in a press statement while expressing their dismay and frustrations at the country’s dismal attempts at proffering solutions to what they describe as ”malaise”.
Also, the group in a joint force with the National Executive Council, (NEC), Central Working Committee, (CWC), said they are worried especially about the increasing attacks by bandits and other criminal elements on institutions in the zones where the majority of their members live and work. including Port Harcourt, Warri, and Kaduna.
They noted that recently, States under Port Harcourt, Warri, and Kaduna Zones were on the front burner with news of security threats, attacks, and killings.
To this, they said ”we must unequivocally restate the importance of these zones to the economic development and industrial peace of the Nation and therefore, must be protected at all costs,”
Proffering solutions to the insecurity and challenges of foreign direct investments, the group suggested that the various levels of government should initiate programs and policies that will gradually improve the ease of doing business in Nigeria and allow private investors with the resources and technical knowhow to invest in hitherto designated regulating all the players and providing the enabling environment and security of investments.
The group explained that their suggestions were based on the fact that the challenges posed by insecurity have limited the inflow of foreign direct investment into the nation’s economy and the accompanying consequences are unimaginable to the growth and development.
According to them, ”No genuine investor, either local or foreign will invest in an environment infested with official graft, excessive bureaucracy, corruption under different guises, kidnapping for Ransoms, double taxations, and wavering business policies,”.
For food security, the group said: ”we do not need experts from the Food and Agriculture Organization, (FAO), or the United Nations to predict that the prevailing level of insecurity plaguing the country will lead to acute food shortages this year and beyond. To further buttress the coming dangers ahead, farmers in states such as Benue, Plateau, Kastina, Nasarawa, and Taraba cannot readily access their farms due to several security challenges. It’s is necessary to aggregate food production by the local farmers because it is the bedrock in which our food security system rests.Our position is that extreme care should be taken to proffer all those engaged in all forms of food production the necessary protection to continue the assiduous work to feed the nearly 200 million mouths nationwide. It is not out of place for the involvement of the military in daily patrols to protect this important industry,”.
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