The African Democratic Congress (ADC) wants President Bola Tinubu to swiftly tackle the nation’s security challenges the same way he intervened in Sunday’s coup attempt in the Benin Republic.
ADC, in a statement on Monday by the National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, urged the president to apply similar decisiveness in combating insurgency and banditry in the country.
“If Nigeria could respond decisively to threats across our borders, why has our government demonstrated such outrageous incompetence in dealing with domestic insecurity?
“Why has the government failed to respond with similar urgency and decisiveness even as banditry, terrorism, and violent crime still hold many of our communities hostage, displace families, abduct children, and parade themselves openly?” the party asked.
According to the ADC, a government that could act swiftly abroad should also act decisively at home, adding, “the defence of democracy does not begin in neighbouring countries; it begins in the protection of Nigerian lives, the restoration of security, and the rebuilding of trust between citizens and the state.”
The party, however, expressed concern at growing democratic reversal in the West African sub-region, and said the best safeguard for democracy is good governance anchored on improved livelihood for the majority and tolerance for opposition.
It called on elected governments in the region to make democracy meaningful to the people by improving their lives and allowing opposition to thrive and alternative voices to be heard.
The party also wondered why the Nigerian government has not acted swiftly in a similar crisis in Guinea-Bissau, even when a former Nigerian President, Goodluck Jonathan, was trapped there during a period of instability.
“That hesitation stands in sharp contrast to (last Sunday’s) urgency. What changed? What determines when Nigeria acts firmly and when it delays?” ADC asked.
The party called for consistency in the country’s mode of operations, especially when it comes to its foreign interventions.
According to the ADC, such a selective reaction “gives credence to the allegation that what played out in Benin was at the behest of another, more powerful country.”
ADC, however, noted that President Tinubu’s unilateral action in the Benin Republic might have been based on expediency, but said it is still subject to the ratification of the National Assembly as required by the relevant sections of the Nigerian Constitution requiring military or security deployment outside Nigeria’s borders.
