Gov. Lalong seeks partnership with Britain to mitigate Plateau killings
Gov. Simon Lalong of Plateau says his administration is seeking partnership with Britain to strenghten the state’s security architecture and mitigate violent conflicts in the state.
Lalong stated this during a courtesy visit to him by a delegation on Governance and Stability from the British High Commission on Tuesday at Government House,Jos .
He said his adminstration was committed to finding lasting solutions to insecurity in the state, which required strengthening the capacity of the PSPBA to implement its mandate of mitigating violent crisis.
He said the state had enjoyed relative peace for about six years untill the recent attacks in some local government areas of the state.
The governor said such developments called for an investigation into the reasons behind the reoccurrence, thus the need for partnership with organisations in the United Kingdom.
He said that the state had many Internally Displaced Persons(IDPs) whose plight required the intervention of the Federal Government and Non Government Organisations(NGOs) to resettle them in their respective communities.
The Governor further said that his administration was making good progress in fostering peace in the state, adding that the Oct. 9 Local Government Elections were conducted successfully and adjudged one of the best in the state.
Lalong said peace was critical to the development of the state,and that it was one of his administration’s major policy thrusts.
“We encourage people to live together and shun hatred, accommodate and understand one another. We have also set up an inter religious council in Plateau, where conflicts of religions are addressed,” he said.
Earlier in her remarks, the leader of the delegation, Ms Sophie Stevens,said the visit was to sympathise with the state and its people over the recent attacks in some local government areas.
Stevens said that Lalong as the chairman of the Northern Governors Forum, played a critical role in the engagement of Britain with the North and Nigeria as a whole, on efforts to find lasting solutions to the security situation in the country.
She said the visit was also to seek his inputs on the kind of collaborative efforts the United Kingdom could proffer on policy solutions, toward building lasting peace and stability in the country.
She said the visit was also to interface with stakeholders, particularly the governor, community and religious leaders, to understand and discuss areas they could work together, while also ensuring other states learned from their success stories and other experiences.
This is highly recommendable, but we need to take away our attention from insecurity a bit, Is it only insecurity that we should be know for?, common why cant the we seek for investment opportunities for the state as we have a lot of resources wasting everyday cutting from agricultural product to mineral resources. what are our leaders doing we can do better by reaching out to partnership with Britain to come and invest in the state as this is a great opportunity for the governor to leverage on.