Dr. Obiageli ‘Oby’ Ezekwesili, founder of the School of Politics, Policy and Governance and former Vice President of the World Bank, has sharply criticized President Bola Tinubu’s administration for allegedly “cuddling terrorists” instead of decisively defeating them.
Speaking on her X account, the co-convener of the #BringBackOurGirls campaign condemned government officials for engaging with bandits without taking firm action. She stated, “It is accurate to state that our federal and state governments, led at this time by @NGRPresident @officialABAT, are, by their appeasement strategy, enabling terrorists by rewarding their criminal behaviour.”
Her comments followed the recent abduction and release of students and teachers from St Mary’s Private Catholic School in Niger State. Ezekwesili lamented that a capable Nigerian government of the past would never tolerate such terrorist acts. “All who persist in harming and killing our country and people, especially our children, would have long been finished off by a caring and competent government,” she said, emphasizing the constitutional duty of the government to protect citizens and ensure safe schools.
Ezekwesili criticized successive administrations for neglecting their constitutional responsibilities since terrorism escalated in 2009. “Our past and present governments, in escalating degrees, have basically failed to decisively and effectively tackle terrorists who take up arms against Nigerians and our country,” she said.
She further argued that grand corruption has weakened Nigeria’s security forces, leading to a policy of appeasement toward terrorists. “Failure with no consequences compounds. It now painfully appears that because grand corruption grossly weakened the capacity of our security establishments, all successive @NigeriaGov administrations implicitly adopted a policy of appeasing terrorists as the only way they know to secure Nigerians and Nigeria,” she lamented.
Ezekwesili condemned government statements celebrating the “release of abducted victims” without transparency about who the criminals were, the terms of negotiations, or the costs involved. She said, “All that Nigerians see is flagrant opaqueness on matters injurious to Nigeria. Terrible! The serial lack of transparency in our insecurity crisis is enabling cancerous and deadly corruption on all sides of the so-called negotiations with criminals, while exposing the country and its people to greater vulnerabilities.”
She criticized the government for failing to arrest or prosecute terror perpetrators, saying, “The @NigeriaGov has neither taken action nor planned arrests and prosecutions of terror perpetrators to send a signal that government still believes there must be consequences for crimes.”
Ezekwesili called the government’s approach “insane,” pointing out that officials who come into contact with terrorists during negotiations take no action to dismantle or prosecute them. She warned that the “abduction industry” thrives because of weak and incompetent governments lacking good governance capacity.
She concluded with a call to action: “This abominable state of affairs will persist until Nigerians collectively arise to dignify their own lives by confronting the reality that those in power have run out of ideas to secure the country and its people.”
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