By Chesa Chesa
Enugu State Governor, Peter Mbah, Thursday, met behind doors with President Bola Tinubu at the Presidential Villa, Abuja where he asked for the release of the leader of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Mazi Nnamdi Kanu.
Addressing State House correspondents after the meeting, Mbah said he explained to Tinubu that Kanu’s release will help the national healing process, which he (Tinubu) has already begun.
The Governor expressed the hope that President Tinubu would give a favorable consideration to the request.
“Webtalked about the release of Nnamdi Kanu. You know, that the South East has made a collective demand to have Nnamdi Kanu released.
“And we basically identified with that and request Mr. President, who in his inaugural address promised the people that he’s going to engender national healing and he’s going to serve with compassion.
“So, we’ve basically informed him that this would serve as a pointer to his administration’s extension of hands of fellowship to neigbours” heb said.
He also disclosed that he also appealed for the assistance of the federal government to explore the abundant mineral resources in Enugu State for the benefit of the people.
His words: “You know that the growth level we have proposed is one that is going to be driven by private sector and private sector wants the ease of doing business and one of the core indicators of the ease of doing business is security and infrastructure.
“So, we also had that conversation with Mr. President. We have made a very strong announcement. We’ve banned sit at home on Mondays in Enugu. And obviously, what that means is that we will, of course, need to, you know, heighten our security, tackle the challenges that would flow from that, and, you know, essentially that’s what I have come to do.
Mbah added: “I came and frankly I brought to the President, the warm greetings and best wishes from the government and the people of Enugu state.
“But, above all, you may also know already that we made massive campaign promises to the people of Enugu and we also have expressed humongous vision.
“We’ve taken a bold view of what the new group could achieve in the next four years, in terms of growing our economy from the current levels to $30 billion. And one of our core governance philosophy is to collaborate and to have partnership, and we have identified the federal government as our core partner.
“We have a number of dominant assets in Enugu which we believe partnering with the federal government, we’re able to transform them into productive assets.
“A lot of people do not know, but we have huge mineral resources in a new group. And these resources are sitting under our ground not being productive.
“So, we believe with the partnership we’re trying to basically build with the federal government, we’re able to transform these assets into productive assets.”
