Over the past few years, a lot has unfortunately happened in Anambra state and just recently – Abia state, with respect to insecurity in these two (2) states, whose governors we would ordinarily assign top tier status owing to their professional achievements over the years.

Things got bad before our very own eyes in Anambra towards the end of the former governor Willie Obiano’s administration. This unfortunately clearly illustrates failure in leadership of the outgone government.

Anambra electorates during the last statewide gubernatorial elections voted for the All-progressive grand alliance (APGA) candidate in that election because to most of them, a man who has played actively in the international sphere of global economy and also at the national level where he was once the governor of the central bank was the most suitable man to fix the state.

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What is more striking and depressing in the Anambra state insecurity conversation is that for a very long period of time, the state is yet to know peace as the wanton destruction of lives and properties have largely continued unabated.

While we understand that there are a lot of dynamics to confronting insecurity in any society, what we must also acknowledge is that some leaders in the past faced similar challenges.

The only difference here is that these leaders-built alliances and made sure to crush these criminals decisively at the time.

Owing to how the class of leaders then led their various states at the time, one would expect that Prof. Charles Chukwuma Soludo, and his team would do anything that is in their power to bring this random killing of the citizens to a halt but that does not seem to be the case.

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While we can agree that in some other sectors of the state especially with respect to revamping the road infrastructure, public health and education sectors, this government can be adjudged to have relatively done well.

However, the state governor scores abysmally low in terms of security of lives and property in the state.

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The situation has become so bad such that an illustrious son of the state based in Abuja whose region is under attack expressed this thought on one of his social media handles.

“Is Gov. Charles Chukwuma Soludo working with the unknown gun men in Anambra? My name is Henry Shield, an indigene of Ebonesie, Ihiala LGA of Anambra state and I’m asking this with my full chest!

Soludo, are you working with unknown gunmen?”.

Governor Charles Chukwuma Soludo must be made to understand that while he asks the world to come to Anambra state to invest with the many juicy offers, he is making these investors as incentives, no one wants to go to a place where non state actors and criminals of all sorts reign terror on the citizens.

The governor must accept that he has failed in this area of the task before him, and he must be seen to be doing everything within his means to keep the state safe else all these his proposals and policies aimed at developing the state would definitely not yield anything tangible.

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Anambra state has all it takes to lead the region in terms of infrastructural development, agriculture, education, health, and hospitality but these cannot be achieved in a security tensed society.

While it is on record that the governor was seen some months ago on a Monday moving round the state with dense security details armed to the teeth, telling the citizens to ignore the sit at home directives from these criminals holding the region hostage, we know that citizens are still being killed randomly on Mondays in Anambra for flouting the sit at home order.

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Remember that Mondays was proclaimed sit at home day by the indigenous people of Biafra (IPOB) to protest against marginalization of the region by the federal government. To enforce this sit at home directive at the outset in the region, people who dared to step out on such days paid with their lives and this was done to instill fear in others who contemplated coming out on such days.

You don’t motivate your followers into their own death by telling them to come out on Mondays while you have not made adequate security provisions to protect the masses on such days.

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Anambra is bleeding with human blood the most and efforts must be made by the government to protect lives and property here at all costs. The governor must swallow his pride, consult widely and seek for help from well-meaning individuals on how to keep the state safe as he is obviously overwhelmed.

Abia state under the leadership of Dr. Alex Otti is enjoying the best of reviews from most social media users who believe that the governor is working.

While the clean city of Aba speaks to that as a reality of the larger Abians, the growing insecurity in the state is a huge source of worry for any lover of Abia state.

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Some days ago, the governor through his media aide Mr. Ferdinand Ekeoma came to the public to indirectly accuse the opposition in the state of sponsoring the insecurity. That was one of the worst excuses I have ever seen for non-performance in any sector of the state economy.

I am worried that this approach seems to be one we are familiar with in the past when President Muhammadu Buhari led government kept blaming the Goodluck Jonathan’s government for the slightest things they should have taken responsibility for. We all saw how it unfortunately ended as they crushed the Nigerian state to its worth level socio-economically.

Dr. Alex Otti must stop the blame henceforth, spend more time in the state he governs and provide solution to the insecurity steadily growing in the state.

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The governor needs to understand that while it provides for good optics to have fireside chats at Yale University, U.S.A and Oxford University, United Kingdom. These lectures would worth more after he has delivered impeccable governance to the people of Abia State at the end of his tenure.

The governors of the southeast must come together to proffer lasting solution to this insecurity because indeed, nobody is safe and remember that for every successful operation carried out, the criminals are emboldened to dare more and cause more destruction of lives and property.

Finally, this is not a time to pass blame around in the state, show strength, well thought out strategy and halt this growing trend. We are losing so many of our friends and probable investments to these criminals and this is not good at all.