Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has issued a message to the current administration, urging President Bola Tinubu to stop negotiating with terrorists.
The former President called on Tinubu to instead embrace military and technological action against the escalating wave of insecurity across the nation.
Speaking at a recent event in Jos, Plateau State, Obasanjo stated that Nigerians have the right to seek international intervention if their government is incapable of protecting them.
He lamented the pervasive insecurity, citing recent high-profile attacks, abductions of hundreds of citizens, and killings across multiple states, which he suggested show the government is “incapable of protecting” Nigerians. He pointedly asked, “Why are we apologising? Why are we negotiating with terrorists?”
“No matter what religion you belong to. No matter where you come from. No matter your profession, we Nigerians are being killed, and our government seems to be incapable of protecting us.
“We are part of the world community. If our government cannot do it, we have the right to call on the international community to do for us what our government cannot do for us,” he said.
Obasanjo maintained that unlike during his time in office, modern technology has made it easier to flush out terrorists from their hideouts.
The former President said, “Before I left the government, I knew we had the capacity to pick up anybody in Nigeria who commits a crime anywhere. The capacity we didn’t have then was after identifying and locating such a criminal, we couldn’t apprehend him without moving on land or by air.
“Now we have capacity. With drones, we can sleeve them up. You can take them out. Why are we not doing that? Why are we apologising? Why are we negotiating?”
Obasanjo’s call for the federal government to stop negotiations with terrorists comes amid escalating killings, abductions, and other attacks on several communities in the North in recent weeks.
On November 21, a total of 315 students and 13 teachers were abducted from St Mary’s Catholic School in Papiri, Niger State.
The abduction came after the terrorists kidnapped 26 schoolgirls at the Government Girls Secondary School, Maga, in Danko-Wasagu Local Government Area of Kebbi State, on November 17.
In the latest assault, bandits struck the Palaita community, Erena Ward, Shiroro Local Government Area of Niger State, abducting 24 people, including pregnant women, from a rice farm.
About 20 people were also abducted by bandits in Kano and Kwara between Monday night and Tuesday morning.
The development comes barely 24 hours after 38 worshippers abducted from the Christ Apostolic Church, Oke-Isegun, Eruku, Ikere, Kwara State, on November 18, were released after the Federal Government negotiated with their abductors.
In the Tuesday attack, 10 persons, including a pregnant woman, nursing mothers, and children were reportedly seized in Isapa community, a few kilometres from Eruku, Kwara State.
