Mr Obafemi George, a political scientist, has said that the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has confronted a greater security crisis than the previous administration of the late Muhammadu Buhari, News.ng reports.
George said this in an interview on Arise Television on Friday morning.
According to him, the Tinubu administration has spent more and recorded more achievements than the previous one.
As to what led to the sudden surge in insecurity in the country, the political scientist noted that the West African bloc, to which Nigeria belongs, and the Francophone countries in the Sahel broke their pact with the French government, ordering its armies to vacate their countries as well as shutting down their military bases. According to George, this gave rise to insecurity in the region, which spilled over into Nigeria.
He said, “Data has shown that this current administration has confronted insecurity that is higher than previous administration, has spent more, and have also recorded more successes in combating insecurity than the previous administration.
“Now, what people should know is that what is the reason for the surge in this insecurity? Prior to 2022, the West, there’s a, I mean, what you call the silent region in Africa; all those French-speaking countries had military pact with France.
“By 2022, all of them began to break that military pact and insisted that French army should vacate the Sahel, Senegal, Cote d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Mali, Chad, Niger, Central African Republic.
“And the moment French military forces vacated that entire silent region, what happened? Terrorists moved in. That’s why Al-Qaeda, ISIS, that used to have their global base in Middle East, now moved to that region.
“And that is why we have seen a sudden surge from 2023. So, what we are now dealing with is no longer Boko Haram in Bono. What we are dealing with now is an international issue.”
Responding to the successful military action in the Lake Chad Basin by the US-Nigeria-Africom forces that led to the elimination of a senior ISIS leader, Abu-Bilal Al-Manuki, also known as Abu-Mainok, George noted that the death of the top ISIS figure shows the level of success the Tinubu administration has recorded.
Re-echoing the Tinubu administration’s success in tackling insecurity, the political expert highlighted some of the achievements recorded in the North.
He said: “And that was why last month, the guy that was killed in Bono, by the, close to the border of Chad, Maliki or Maniki, I don’t know how to pronounce his name properly, Maliki, that was number two, ISIS globally, in fact, they called him the most active terrorist. Just to let you know the volume of what this government is dealing with. And in spite of that, every single day successes.
“In the month of May alone, when that unfortunate incident happened in Oyo State, if you look at virtually every single day, second of May, some children were rescued in the same Goza local government. On the 8th of May, children were rescued in the same Goza local government. On the 23rd of May, 32 Nigerians who were kidnapped were rescued in Katsina.”
When asked about the May 15 abduction in Oyo State, he responded, saying that the fact that one of the abductees pleaded that the Nigerian military not come close to the terrorists showed that the security agencies had been working.
“Now, what does that tell us? Does that not mean that there are soldiers working, trying to rescue them? If they posted a video saying that they shouldn’t come close, doesn’t that tell us that they are working? Or is it because Nigerian army did not come to post a video online?,” he asked.
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