Insecurity in Akwa Ibom: Arc Nya-Etok calls for cease fire.
The informed citizen practically begs youths, police to calm down for sake of posterity.
Woried by the spate of insecurity in Akwa Ibom State, an informed citizen of the state, Arc Ezekiel Nya-Etok has appealed to the youth to drop their weapons and give government a chance to roll out its empowerment packages and development plans.
Speaking through a viral video on air and online, especially on social media, Arc Nya-Etok bemoaned the rising cases of armed robbery and car snatching in recent times, warning that such state of insecurity in Akwa Ibom State is detrimental to the people the youth as the major loser.
Arc Nya-Etok also appealed the police to put behind them trauma of the #EndASRS protest and be alive to their responsibility, with a view to arresting the situation.
Citizen Nya-Etok, who had been critical if government in recent times, decried the situation where criminal elements robbed residents in broad daylight unhindered, but insisted that the development transcends party line, hence the need for unity.
“I want to appeal to the government, police, parents and particuarly the young people, let’s not create any level of Insecurity (in Akwa Ibom) that will drive people away from here, that will drive investors away from here. Those are the people that create jobs.
“If we are able to put ourselves together, we are going to go through this (turbulent) time,” Arc Nya-Etok posited.
He recalled with nostalgia the days of criminal activities in the state and warned the youth against returning the state to such critical time.
“Some years back, I ran a very big architectural office in this state but I was forced to relocate to Abuja because of the level of insecurity then. It wasn’t only myself: a lot of people the town and the consequence was that a lot of young people lost their jobs.
“At that time, I had about 20 young people working for me but they were thrown into labour market. Only a few followed me to Abuja. That was not good for us.
“Luckily for us the situation got arrested and we had peace. As a matter of fact, one of the things the present administration can accredited for is that of ensuring relative peace. With the relative peace, people try to come into the town to do business and creates employment opportunities for our teeming youths.
“On the converse, if there is Insecurity in Akwa Ibom people leave town and once they leave town people are going to lose their jobs and that is going to worse for us.
“In the past couple of days, particuarly in the last one week, after the #EndSARS protest, the level of insecurity in Akwa Ibom is almost unprecedented.
“We have car theft, we have car snatching, we have shop to shop looting and we have attempts at Street to Street and even house to house robbery. Some of them happened as early as 5pm. This is not good for us.
“The consequence is very fire: (i) there would be loss of jobs. (ii) the (2021) budget has just been passed and if this continues no government would would sit down and watch it happens. They are going to do something drastic and that means moving money into security.
“This is amount of money that would have been used for development or made infrastructural facilities available for young people. When this money is moved into security who lose, young people.
“Ncw coming on the heels of such security is the fact that there is going to be deployment of a lot of technologies because I won’t sit here and see it happens. I am going to network with government at the highest level and one of the things we are going to bring is security monitoring equipments; either the drones or even cameras.
“We are going to put cameras in houses that are strategically positioned and what do you think will happen? You will be sitting in your houses.and discovered that you are taken, your sons are arrested and that will be terrible.
“As a result that, I appeal to; (i) young people to (calm down). I sat down with the governor and told me things he doing with respect to making jobs available and that is going to come in a couple of days. I want you to give government a little bit of time now that the budget has been passed to release what they have for the young people in particular.
“We know things are difficult but don’t get into the situation where you get ruined because if the interim things you are getting. What you snatched from people can never take you far because the sweat and cries of those people will definitely get back to you. It cannot prosper you for long.
“You are extremely resourceful, you have a great future. I just want you to relax a little bit; don’t join this, because of the monitoring you are going to see yourself where you won’t like,” Arc Nya-Etok pleaded.
