Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has criticised the Federal Government’s approach to tackling kidnappers, accusing President Bola Tinubu’s administration of allowing criminal groups to operate with impunity.
Atiku’s criticism came in a statement issued on Wednesday by his spokesman, Paul Ibe, shortly after the presidency announced the release of schoolgirls abducted in Kebbi State last Monday.
Presidential aide Bayo Onanuga had earlier said the Kebbi schoolgirls, alongside another group of students freed in Niger State and about 38 worshippers abducted in Kwara, were released without any ransom being paid.
But Atiku, through his media office, dismissed the government’s stance as self-congratulatory and misleading.
He said bandits and terrorists had “become an alternative government, negotiating, collecting ransom, and walking away untouched, while the presidency celebrates their 'compliance.’
“No serious nation applauds itself for negotiating with terrorists it claims to have under surveillance. No responsible government congratulates itself for allowing abductors to walk back into the forests to kidnap again. Onanuga and his ilk should stop insulting Nigerians with propaganda,” said.
Atiku described the government’s response as a “national disgrace,” saying that if security agencies had indeed been monitoring the kidnappers, allowing them to escape raised serious questions about complicity.
He further criticised what he called a “shameful attempt to whitewash a national tragedy and dress up government incompetence as heroism,” adding that the release of abducted Nigerians should not be portrayed as an achievement.
“If, as Onanuga claims, the DSS and the military could ‘track’ the kidnappers in real time and ‘made contact’ with them, then the question is simple: Why were these criminals not arrested, neutralised, or dismantled on the spot?
“Why is the government boasting about talking to terrorists instead of eliminating them? Why is kidnapping now reduced to a routine phone call between criminals and state officials?,” he asked.
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