The Presidency has said that former President Olusegun Obasanjo is not in the right position to criticise President Bola Tinubu over the worsening security situation in Nigeria. FG recently alleged that terrorism actually took root under Obasanjo’s government, and Nigerians have been reacting.
In a social media post by the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Public Communication, Mr Sunday Dare, the FG slammed OBJ over his comment that President Tinubu should seek foreign help if he is unable to tackle the nation’s security challenges.
According to him, before the former President recommends giving up Nigeria’s sovereignty to foreign powers, he should reflect on what he clearly failed to do when terrorists started attacking citizens under his watch.
He stated that Tinubu’s government will not allow those who midwifed the country’s early security failures to rewrite history.
“This administration will not be distracted by selective amnesia wrapped in elder-statesmanship, nor will it allow those who midwifed Nigeria’s early security failures to rewrite history.
Recent comments by a former President and a few habitual presidential aspirants attempting to paint the Tinubu administration as ‘unable to protect Nigerians’ are not merely hypocritical but ignoble. They ignore the hard truth: Nigeria is facing terrorists — all of them — by every definition, be they international, regional or local.
Yet the very individuals who looked away when these threats first sprouted now want to sit in judgment. Nigerians know better.
The suggestion that Nigeria should effectively subcontract its internal security to foreign governments is not statesmanship; it is capitulation. Before recommending surrender, the former President should reflect on what he failed to do when these terrorists first began organising under his watch,” he said.
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Sunday Dare further noted that it is an established fact that the country is under attack by terrorists, but OBJ’s lack of action as president led to increasing cases of terrorism in Nigeria.
FG concluded by saying that Obasanjo’s administration helped terrorism thrive by not halting it early.
“The people killing Nigerians, raiding villages, kidnapping innocents, blowing up infrastructure and challenging state authority are terrorists — whether they fly a foreign flag or none at all.
Nigeria today confronts a multilayered terrorist ecosystem that includes: Internationally designated terror organisations;I SIS-linked and al-Qaeda-linked franchises across the Sahel; Local violent extremist groups masquerading as bandits; Cross-border terrorist cells exploiting porous frontiers;Ideological insurgents and criminal-terror hybrids operating in ungoverned spaces.
These actors collaborate. They share money, ideology, weapons, intelligence and logistics. Their goal is the same: to break the Nigerian state and subjugate its people. Let’s call them what they all are: terrorists.
It is historical fact that the ideological foundations and early cells of Boko Haram were incubated during Obasanjo’s civilian presidency. While they recruited, indoctrinated, built camps and flaunted authority, the state failed to act decisively.
What began as a preventable extremist sect transformed into:
a violent insurgency;
a cross-border terrorist franchise;
a regional menace aligned with global jihadist movements.
For the leader under whom the first seeds of terrorism were allowed to sprout, attempting to lecture a sitting President who is confronting the consequences is the height of irony,” he added.
