Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has confronted President Bola Tinubu about the country’s security condition, notably the recurring kidnappings around the nation.
Atiku, who ran against Tinubu in the 2023 presidential election, has requested the President to step down if he is unable to address the country’s deteriorating security situation.
The former vice president stated that despite escalating levels of insecurity, the President was able to find the confidence to leave the nation and travel to France privately.
Atiku stated that the country does not require another “Tourist-in-Chief”.
Tinubu left Abuja for a private visit to Paris, France, on Wednesday last week.
Ajuri Ngelale, his special adviser on media and publicity, confirmed this in a statement headed ‘President Tinubu flies to France.’
Although the announcement did not specify the cause for the travel, Ngelale stated, “He will return to the country in the first week of February 2024.”
The President’s visit to France was his third since taking office eight months ago.
The Peoples Democratic Party, Labour Party, and Labour Party had all demanded an explanation for what the Presidency claimed as a private visit.
The PDP’s Deputy National Publicity Secretary, Ibrahim Abdullahi, argued that the insecurity and state of the nation’s economy made it the worst moment for Tinubu to travel abroad.
This came as Yunusa Tanko, spokesman for the LP 2023 Presidential Campaign Council, said that the trip had a secret objective and suggested that the President was ailing.
In response to the visit and pockets of kidnappings in Nigeria, Atiku stated that the country requires an aggressive leader to combat insecurity.
“Tinubu is playing fiddle while Nigeria is drowning in the ocean of insecurity. To imagine that the Commander-in-Chief is on a so-called private visit while kidnappers kill a nursing mother and grandmother in Abuja for failing to pay N90m ransom and two monarchs in Ekiti, among other regular tragedies besetting Nigerians.
“If the shoes are too big for Emilokan, he should step aside. Nigeria does not need another Tourist-in-Chief. The country needs 24/7 leadership to confront the pervasive insecurity and collapsing economy,” Atiku said in a post on his X account on Tuesday.
This media reports that daredevil kidnappers have continued to unleash terror on citizens in different parts of the country in defiance of security arrangements put in place to tackle the issue of abduction for ransom, which has lately assumed the level of commercial transactions.
For instance, three riot police inspectors were kidnapped last Friday evening in the Ohoror community, off the East-West Road, Ughelli North Local Government Area of Delta State, while gunmen, on Saturday, kidnapped the Oyo State Chairman, of the Tipper, Lorry, and Quarry Park Management System, Alhaji Akeem Akintola.
Similarly, on Saturday, the Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Abia State University, Uturu, Prof Godwin Emezue, was abducted from a petrol station at Umuekwule, Amachara, a community in the Umuahia South Local Government Area of the state.
Also, gunmen suspected to be kidnappers on Monday killed two Ekiti State monarchs on the Ipao-Oke Ako Road.
This was as civil society groups, under the aegis of the Civil Society Joint Action Group, said 17,469 Nigerians were abducted under the Muhammadu Buhari and Bola Tinubu administrations from 2019 to date.