FG shifts focus to grassroots development to tackle South-east challenges
FG shifts focus to grassroots development to tackle South-east challenges
The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Community Engagement (South East), Barrister Chioma Nweze, has met with the Minister of Defence, General Christopher Musa (rtd), to deliberate on pressing security challenges facing the South-east region.
The high-level engagement brought together members of the Presidential Community Engagement Team and senior officials of the Ministry of Defence, with discussions focused on strengthening collaboration through community-driven and non-kinetic security strategies.
Both parties stressed that sustainable peace and security can only be achieved through active grassroots participation and trust-based engagement between local communities and security institutions.
Key areas of deliberation included enhancing intelligence gathering through structured community engagement, improving communication of government security interventions to local populations, and ensuring that feedback from the grassroots is effectively transmitted to relevant authorities.
The meeting also emphasised the need to deepen trust between citizens and security agencies as a critical step toward addressing insecurity and countering misinformation in the region.
It was resolved that a joint working team would be constituted to coordinate regional security summits across the South East, involving stakeholders from the local, state and federal levels.
The proposed summits are expected to provide a platform for citizens to openly articulate security concerns, share experiences and contribute to practical, people-centred solutions.
In addition, a direct communication channel was established between the Ministry of Defence and the Presidential Community Engagement Team to ensure sustained coordination, timely information sharing and effective follow-up on agreed actions.
