Prominent Igbo businessmen and philanthropists, Chief Emeka Offor, and Prince Arthur Eze, have thrown their weight behind the peace initiative in the South-East region with financial commitments.
The initiative is being championed by an organization known as Peace in South-East Project (PISE-P) with the support of the members of the National Assembly from the zone led by the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representives, Rt. Hon. Benjamin Okezie Kalu.
The project is a comprehensive five-year peace-building and development initiative designed to address the complex socioeconomic challenges and security issues facing the South-East region of Nigeria.
It is essentially pushing for a non-kinetic means of resolving the lingering air of violence and security challenges in the region, improving the infrastructural development of the area and ensuring greater political inclusion of the zone in the national equation.
Receiving a delegation of the organisation led by Kalu, who paid him a courtesy visit, Offor lauded the initiative, saying it was a welcome development.
He said that going by its eight cardinal pillars of Education; Agriculture; Commerce/Industry; Infrastructural Development; Culture and Tourism; Sports/Entertainment; Governance/Leadership and Reconciliation/Rehabilitation/Reintegration encapsulated in the non-kinetic measures, PISE-P was well positioned to give a new lease of life in the South-East by tackling the security challenges.
To this end, Offor doled out millions of Naira to support the project even as he called on other prominent Igbo sons and daughters and indeed, Nigerians from all walks of life to support the project.
Similarly, another prominent Igbo son and billionaire businessman, Chief Arthur Eze, has also firmed up his promise of committing some finances to the project.
It will be recalled that Kalu also recently led a delegation of PISE-P to brief Eze on the project’s mission, to which he pledged some huge amount of money.
The Authority reports that PISE-P will be officially unveiled on Friday, December 29, 2023, in Bende Local Government Area of Abia State.
