THREE governors in the South-South region, Ifeanyi Okowa
(Delta State), Nyesom Wike (Rivers State) and Udom Emmanuel (Akwa-Ibom State)
have expressed a passionate desire to revive the docile BRACED commission.
BRACED is an acronym of the names of the six states of the
South-South geo-political zone including Bayelsa, Rivers, Akwa-Ibom, Cross
River, Edo and Delta. The commission was formed to foster economic development
and integration of the oil rich region.
But BRACED has been docile since the new set of governors
took over in 2015, hence the latest move by the three governors of the three
states with the highest oil production output to see to its revival.
The three governors who are of the country’s main opposition
party, People’s Democratic Party (PDP) held a closed door meeting in Monday in
Asaba in what many observers believed was a political move.
However, the governors told reporters that the meeting was
not about politics but that they had an economic and security based discussion.
Gov. Udom who spoke on behalf of his colleagues, said
governs of the South-South region were very passionate about reviving the
docile BRACED commission in order to serve the aim of its creation.
He said the issue of insecurity also occupied front burner
during meeting, noting that the state executives in the region were looking at
ways to fortify security to sustain oil production.
“On behalf of all our colleagues from the South-South
region, we just came together to discuss few economic issues and how we can
revive the BRACED commission.
“And also, we looked at how we can try and fortify security
network especially now that the oil prices are a little bit epileptic, we need
to make sure that we maintain production.
“We are looking at how we can form that unity and shell will
to see how we can tackle the issue of insecurity to maintain that level of oil
production without necessarily jeopardizing our responsibilities to our people.
“Those are just few issues that we looked at, mainly the
BRACED commission which is a vision we don’t want to abandon.
“It is actually a very good economic platform for the entire
region to look at those areas of common economic interest so that we can also
foster economic growth in the region,” he said.
Udom insisted that the meeting was purely for economic and
security reasons and not political, adding that all political discussions are better
done at the party headquarters.
“We could not have come here to discuss politics, you know
our party is running now on a turbo cylinder, so if it politics we go to party
headquarters,” he stated before hopping into a waiting car along with Gov. Nyesom
Wike.
By Paul Osuyi
