By Obinna Uballa
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has called on the Federal Government to halt all negotiations with terrorists and seek international assistance to tackle Nigeria’s worsening insecurity.
Obasanjo issued the warning on Friday while speaking at the Plateau State Unity Christmas Carol and Praise Festival in Jos, amid a wave of killings and mass abductions that has swept across several northern states in recent weeks.
He said Nigerians are being killed daily without adequate protection from the state, insisting that the country has a right to seek help beyond its borders if the government is unable to secure lives and property.
“No matter your religion, where you come from or your profession, we Nigerians are being killed, and our government seems to be incapable of protecting us,” Obasanjo said, as captured in a viral video. “We are part of the world community. If our government cannot do it, we have the right to call on the international community to do for us what our government cannot do for us.”
His remarks come on the heels of a string of violent attacks. On Tuesday, bandits invaded the Palaita community in Erena Ward, Shiroro Local Government Area of Niger State, abducting 24 farmers, including pregnant women. Around the same period, about 20 people were kidnapped in separate raids in Kano and Kwara.
The surge in violence follows earlier kidnappings, including the abduction of 26 schoolgirls from Government Girls Secondary School, Maga, in Danko-Wasagu Local Government Area of Kebbi State on November 17.
In Kwara, 38 worshippers taken from the Christ Apostolic Church, Oke-Isegun, Eruku, on November 18 were released on Monday after the Federal Government reportedly negotiated with their abductors—an approach Obasanjo strongly condemned.
In another attack on Tuesday, 10 persons, including a pregnant woman, nursing mothers and children, were abducted in Isapa community, near Eruku.
Obasanjo criticised the continued reliance on negotiations, arguing that modern technology gives Nigeria more than enough capacity to monitor, identify and neutralise terrorists without conceding to their demands.
“Before I left government, we had the capacity to pick up anybody in Nigeria who committed a crime anywhere,” he said. “The capacity we didn’t have then was to apprehend him immediately after identifying and locating him.
“Now we have capacity. With drones, we can sleeve them up. You can take them out. Why are we not doing that? Why are we apologising? Why are we negotiating?”
