•Effiong and Tinubu
Human rights lawyer, Inibehe Effiong, has accused President Bola Tinubu’s administration of being uninterested in addressing the rising tide of insecurity sweeping across the country.
Effiong claims the Tinubu-led government has not done enough to resolve the security challenges, accusing it of choosing instead to keep a keen eye on politics ahead of the 2027 general elections.
“If, at a minimum, we do want to agree that the state has failed, we should be able to agree that Nigeria is failing and it’s failing at an accelerated rate because today we have a Commander-in-Chief that is not even commanding the Boy Scouts,” the lawyer said today on Channels Television.
“We have a Commander-in-Chief whose words, whose orders, are almost meaningless. What the president is doing is welcoming decampees, he is celebrating governors who are transiting from PDP, from LP, governors and lawmakers to the APC. That is what excites him. I have not seen that passion from this president to stop the killings.”
He said, “I would never accept that the Nigerian government does not have the capacity to stop these things because how many are they, members of Boko haram, ISWAP, the so-called bandits who are actually terrorists, how many are they?”
Scores of students were abducted in Niger and Kebbi states, with worshippers taken away in Kwara (they have been freed), in the last two weeks, sending chilling waves across the country.
President Tinubu immediately directed Vice President Kashim Shettima to visit Kebbi, where schoolgirls were whisked away. The Nigerian leader also postponed his foreign trips owing to the incidents and mandated security chiefs to address the issues.
However, Effiong does not see Tinubu’s efforts as enough, questioning why the former Lagos State governor did not do more.
He said, “First, he has not visited the victims. Is the vice president the commander-in-chief, and when the vice president went to Kebbi, what did he achieve?
“Yesterday or two days ago, an announcement was made that this same president has ordered that policemen will be withdrawn from all the VIPs in Nigeria so that policemen can be redirected to fight insecurity.”
