Group to Tinubu: Security hasn’t improved since you took over

The Ijaw National Congress has decried the state of insecurity in Nigeria, saying the situation had remained largely precarious since the change of the baton of leadership from former President Muhammadu Buhari to his successor, Bola Tinubu.

The group urged the president to give adequate attention to the nation’s internal security problems of banditry, insurgency, and kidnap-for-ransom rather than devoting so much energy, time, and resources to the political crisis in neighbouring Niger Republic following the coup staged by soldiers in that country.

President of the INC, Prof. Benjamin Okaba, stated these in a statement titled, ‘No paradigm shift yet in security architecture’, issued in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State on Sunday.

He said, “Curiously, there has not been significant improvement in the security architecture of the country. The security policy of the Federal Government under the current political dispensation is not yet clear to the citizens, who have continued to live and go about their daily activities in subdued fear and anxiety.

“The Ijaw National Congress (INC) recalls that President Tinubu, since his inauguration, has held at least two security meetings between June and July with the Service Chiefs, including the acting Inspector General of Police, that he appointed after sacking their predecessors which he inherited from Buhari. Sadly, this has not brought about a fundamental paradigm shift in the war against insurgency, banditry, and kidnap-for-ransom in all parts of the country.

“Despite those security meetings, the nation has continued to record killings and abductions of hapless citizens every other week. In some instances, victims of kidnapping had paid humongous sums of money to secure their freedoms from their abductors. Others have not been lucky.” Punch