Dare Babalola
The presidency has issued statement criticising former President Olusegun Obasanjo, asserting that the origins of terrorism were established while he served as president of Nigeria.
According to Sunday Dare, Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Media and Public Communication, in a post on his verified X account on Sunday, Obasanjo was not in the right position to criticise Tinubu over the worsening security situation in the country.
This response comes in reaction to comments made by former President Obasanjo, who advised that President Tinubu ought to seek international help if unable to resolve Nigeria’s security challenges.
The former president called for Nigeria to subcontract its internal security to foreign governments is not an act of statesmanship.
The Presidency, in a stern response to Obasanjo, stated that the former President ought to introspect on the measures he neglected to implement when terrorist activities initially emerged during his administration before advising President Tinubu to compromise national sovereignty through foreign intervention.
“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,” Dare wrote.
