Kidnapping: Manufacturers Seek State Of Emergency In Southeast

THE Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), South East Zone, has called on President Goodluck Jonathan to declare a state of emergency in the five Southeast states and replace the governors with military sole administrators, stressing that the radical measure is necessary to address the failure of the governors in guaranteeing security of lives and property in the area.

Reacting to the kidnap of a member of the association and the chief executive of Juhel Nigeria Limited, Dr Ifeanyi Okoye, by unknown gunmen at Okigwe last Thursday, South east zonal chairman of MAN, Dr. Chike Obidigbo, noted that the failure of the governors to address the growing unemployment as well as their indifference to the strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities, (ASUU) which has made the undergraduates of the universities to be idle for more than six months, are responsible for the multiplication of crimes in the Southeast.

The kidnapped victim, Dr Okoye, recently opened an infusion plant in Awka, Anambra State. He was kidnapped on his way to Owerri to board a flight en-route Abuja. The incident occurred less than two months after his 76-year-old mother was kidnapped in his village on the eve of President Goodluck Jonathan’s visit to Anambra to commission the infusion plant. Sources said over N3 miilion was paid to secure the release of the old woman.

Obidigbo said the governors of the five South East states seem to be enjoying the kidnapping saga explaining that they stand as indirect beneficiaries of the crime since according to him, “when everyone runs away as most manufacturers are doing, the governors would be free to continue with the looting of the economy in which growth  they show little interest.”

Chronicling the litany of woes dogging manufacturers in the southeast, the MAN Chairman noted that manufacturing has become the worst form of investment anybody could make even though those who venture into manufacturing, like the JUHEL MD, do so to provide employment to the growing army of unemployed young people.

The Association explained that the legislators from southeast in Abuja ought to take up the issue of kidnapping and keep on shouting until something was done since, according to him, the southeast geopolitical zone is fast drowning socially and economically.
Source:http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/