From Jude Dangwam, Jos

Governors of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) under the platform of PDP Governors Forum yesterday visited their Plateau State counterpart, Caleb Mutfwang.

The governors were in Jos to sympathise with the governor and people of Plateau State over the recent killings in Mangu Local Government Area.

The governors re-echoed the need for the establishment of State Police to tackle the deteriorating security situation in the country.

The chairman of the forum and Governor of Bauchi State, Bala Mohammed who led the six other PDP Governors lamented that the ratio of police to citizens is very low.

He said, “We are being very honest with ourselves.

“They are doing their best but certainly the ratio or policing is very low and the states know the peculiarities, local government areas, their towns and villages and how community crisis can be managed.

“So we have always advocated…we need to get some decentralization of the security apparatus so that we can enhance good governance by having good state police.”

Mohammed emphasized that the establishment of State Police will give state governors the opportunity to engage the youth.

“And that would give us the opportunity to engage the structure for the security agencies to train our youths and also make sure the rules of engagement are not broken — there are no extrajudicial killings, and so forth.

“We will work in tandem with the established global best practices rather than being forced to do vigilante.

“Even on the vigilante, we’re doing our best to make sure we involve the security agencies, but we are still being accused.

“We copy from the Amotekun, we can see what is happening in Zamfara, in Katsina and other places.

“This is good to go because Nigerians want to have peace and we as PDP have no option other than to show the difference between beans and rice.

“That’s what we are trying to do to make sure we bring projects and programs, good governance with the little resources we have.

“But we are doing our best with the little that we have,” the Bauchi State governor explained.

The forum chairman while announcing a donation of N100 million to the state government towards mitigating the impact of the crisis assured the government of their support at all times.

He urged the Plateau State governor to remain focused amidst the resurgence of insecurity, describing it as a distraction.

Governor Mutfwang thanked the forum for identifying with him and the people of Plateau State, adding that his administration would never lose focus in the face of the challenges.

He stated, “For us, we don’t take this visit and support for granted. We want to sincerely appreciate you.

“Of course, the matters we are confronting are not entirely peculiar to us in the state. It has become a national challenge.

“We found a situation in the last administration where you were tempted to think that even the perpetrators of insecurity were supervised by the state.

“This emboldened them to continue to unleash terror on innocent lives. We need unity across the divides of faith, across the divides of ethnicity.”

Mutfwang reiterated that delivering good governance will continue to be the selling point of the PDP which he believes Nigerians have always looked up to from the PDP. The governors in attendance were of: Osun, Oyo, Bauchi, Adamawa, Edo and Enugu States.