South-South Governors to Establish Regional Security Outfit

The South-South Governors Forum has announced the decision to launch a security outfit to check insecurity in the region. Governor Ifeanyi Okowa who stated this at the end of a meeting with other South South Governors, said though Ben Ayada was absent, they agreed that BRACED an acronym for (Bayelsa, Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Edo and Delta) Commission would work out the modalities for the security outfit.

Okowa said: “Five out of the six state governors of the Sout-South geopolitical region have just finished with our South-South Forum’s meeting, where far-reaching decisions were taken. Our colleague the governor of Cross River was held up in Abuja, so he could not make it. We had a very enriching meeting and a decision was taken concerning the BRACE Commission, which was started about 10 years ago by our colleagues, who were governors before us.

“We have agreed to restart the BRACE Commission and ensure we provide the necessary logistics for it to function properly. The commission as established was to help us look into the issues of regional economy and the need for us to develop our region collectively, instead of working as individual states,” he further said.

“A lot has been done in terms of documentation in the past. And in the last five years, the commission has almost gone to sleep. But we have agreed we have to restart it with headquarters in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, with our next meeting coming up in May, in Port Harcourt,” Okowa added.