Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has declared that Nigeria’s worsening insecurity cannot be solved by military power alone, arguing that the root of the crisis lies deep within systemic governance failures.
Speaking on Thursday through his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Mr Phrank Shaibu, the African Democratic Congress (ADC) presidential candidate for the 2027 election accused the Bola Tinubu administration of overseeing a security framework that remains static while threats evolve rapidly.
According to Atiku, the relentless expansion of terrorism, banditry, and kidnapping from northern strongholds into previously unaffected regions proves that the nation’s approach is broken. He noted that insurgents continuously refine their methods after each operation, yet the government has failed to mirror that learning process.
“The terrorists study their own battles. They adjust. They strike again smarter than before. Why isn’t the government doing the same?” Atiku asked.
He pointed to a grim national pattern: a major attack, widespread outrage, official promises, a committee formed—then another attack. From the Chibok girls’ abduction to recent school kidnappings in Oyo State and violence sweeping the North-West and Middle Belt, Atiku said Nigerians are witnessing a cycle of unlearned tragedies.
“A nation that refuses to learn from its tragedies is condemned to relive them,” he warned.
The former vice president argued that successive governments have relied too heavily on foreign-designed counterterrorism models while ignoring the firsthand experiences of affected communities. He called for an immediate and comprehensive review of Nigeria’s National Counterterrorism Policy, insisting that future strategies must be rooted in local realities.
Atiku also raised concerns about public spending, stating that despite trillions of naira allocated to defence over the years, Nigerians find themselves less secure today than a decade ago. “This is not merely a failure of resources,” he said. “It is a failure of strategy, coordination, accountability, and leadership.”
As part of his proposed reforms, Atiku recommended the creation of a Terrorism Violence Peer Review Mechanism—a platform bringing together community leaders, local security personnel, and survivors to systematically document lessons from past attacks. He also advocated for specialised Counterterrorism Fusion Centres across Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones to enable real-time intelligence sharing among the military, police, DSS, NSCDC, immigration, customs, and vigilante groups.
Beyond military operations, Atiku stressed the importance of intelligence-led strategies, stronger border controls, and the aggressive dismantling of terrorist financing networks. He added that poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, and state neglect create fertile recruitment grounds for extremist groups, making governance reform inseparable from security.
“Terrorism is not merely a security challenge; it is also a governance challenge,” the statement read.
He further proposed a National Victims and Survivors Support Framework to provide psychosocial care, educational aid, and economic recovery programmes for devastated communities.
Concluding his remarks, the Wazirin Adamawa urged President Tinubu’s administration to move beyond rhetoric and implement urgent, evidence-based reforms. “Nigerians deserve nothing less than a counterterrorism framework that is proactive, evidence-based, transparent, and firmly rooted in our domestic realities,” he said.
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