Security personnel and experts drawn from various security and paramilitary agencies have hailed Enugu State Government’s heavy investment in security, calling on other states to emulate the state.

The experts and security personnel were members of the Executive Intelligence Management Course (EIMC) 19 of the National Institute for Security Studies (NISS), Abuja, who paid a courtesy visit to Governor Peter Mbah at Government House, Enugu, on Monday.

Team Lead, Olalekan Fashanu, told Mbah that the team was on a study tour of Enugu State in fulfilment of their course, which focuses on “Ethnic Militia and Resource Competition in Africa: Implications for National Security.”

Fielding questions from Government House correspondents, a staff member of NISS, Dr. Olusola Opa-Ola, singled out the ultramodern Enugu State Command and Control Centre with accompanying AI-enabled cameras mounted across the state for praise, saying it is a very potent infrastructure for fighting insecurity.

“We have come here on a study tour in Enugu State. We are happy with what we have seen so far. We are impressed, especially in the area of security.

“With the command and control they have installed, which has assisted them in so many ways in curbing insecurity and in identifying grey areas, and which is a major factor that enables them to achieve these great lengths that they have achieved.

“We hope other states can come around, copy this type of command and control that they have established here. It has assisted them to nip crime in the bud. Other states around here or even in the federation can copy this kind of security investment.

“It would help us to have fewer problems of insecurity nationwide. The Federal Government will be less in charge, while the state governments can do a lot with political will.”

He also called for greater collaboration among all tiers of government and agencies in charge of security.

“One agency cannot do it alone, and one state cannot do it alone except by collaboration,” he stated.

On his part, Governor Mbah said there was no way his administration could actualise its vision to grow the state’s economy from $4.4bn to $30bn without tackling the huge security challenges inherited at its inception.

He said his administration would continue to prioritise the security of lives and property, and commended the security agencies for their cooperation in restoring the confidence of investors and residents in the capacity of government to secure them.

Governor Mbah observed that Nigeria is one of the most blessed countries on earth, urging the team to interrogate what he described as the “tragedy of the commons,” which he said was the real bane of resource optimisation in Nigeria.

“I think we are actually blessed with more resources than we actually need, but the challenge is this tragedy of the commons, which is determining who the owners of the resources are because if we are not able to identify who the real owner is, then we are unable to invest to optimise them. You are unable to spend without taking full ownership. So, we need to have a structure to optimise those resources.

“I think the idea of your studies is for you to come back and teach us and let us learn from your research. It will help you to interrogate some of these things, whether we are really suffering from resource competition or the tragedy of the commons,” the governor concluded.