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Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has tackled President Bola Tinubu over the country’s security situation, particularly the recurrent kidnappings across the nation.
Atiku, who contested against Tinubu during the 2023 presidential election, asked the President to step aside if he can’t handle the worsening insecurity in the country.
The former vice president said despite rising cases of insecurity, the President could muster the courage to leave the country and proceeded on a private visit to France.
Atiku said the country does not need another “Tourist-in-Chief”.
Tinubu had last week Wednesday departed Abuja for Paris, France, for a private visit.
His special adviser on Media and Publicity, Ajuri Ngelale, revealed this in a statement titled ‘President Tinubu travels to France.’
Although the statement did not state the reasons for the visit, Ngelale said, “He will return to the country in the first week of February 2024.”
The visit was the President’s third to France since he assumed office eight months ago.
The Peoples Democratic Party and the Labour Party and Labour Party had also demanded an explanation of what the Presidency described as a private visit.
The PDP Deputy National Publicity Secretary, Ibrahim Abdullahi, stated that the insecurity and the state of the nation’s economy made it the worst time for Tinubu to embark on a foreign trip.
This was as the spokesman for the LP 2023 Presidential Campaign Council, Yunusa Tanko, alleged that there was a hidden agenda for the trip and mentioned that the President was sick.
But reacting to the visit and pocket of kidnappings in Nigeria, Atiku said the country needs an active leader to confront insecurity.
“Tinubu is playing fiddle while Nigeria is drowning in the ocean of insecurity. To imagine that the Commander-in-Chief is on a so-called private visit while kidnappers kill a nursing mother and grandmother in Abuja for failing to pay N90m ransom and two monarchs in Ekiti, among other regular tragedies besetting Nigerians.
“If the shoes are too big for Emilokan, he should step aside. Nigeria does not need another Tourist-in-Chief. The country needs 24/7 leadership to confront the pervasive insecurity and collapsing economy,” Atiku said in a post on his X account on Tuesday.
The PUNCH reports that daredevil kidnappers have continued to unleash terror on citizens in different parts of the country in defiance of security arrangements put in place to tackle the issue of abduction for ransom, which has lately assumed the level of commercial transactions.
For instance, three riot police inspectors were kidnapped last Friday evening in the Ohoror community, off the East-West Road, Ughelli North Local Government Area of Delta State, while gunmen, on Saturday, kidnapped the Oyo State Chairman, of the Tipper, Lorry, and Quarry Park Management System, Alhaji Akeem Akintola.
Similarly, on Saturday, the Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Abia State University, Uturu, Prof Godwin Emezue, was abducted from a petrol station at Umuekwule, Amachara, a community in the Umuahia South Local Government Area of the state.
Also, gunmen suspected to be kidnappers on Monday killed two Ekiti State monarchs on the Ipao-Oke Ako Road.
This was as civil society groups, under the aegis of the Civil Society Joint Action Group, said 17,469 Nigerians were abducted under the Muhammadu Buhari and Bola Tinubu administrations from 2019 to date.
