The Tanimu Turaki-led Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), on Monday, charged President Bola Tinubu to deploy the same energy his administration allegedly uses in stifling the opposition, against the insecurity ravaging the country.
The party threw the challenge while reacting to the killing of a teacher in Oyo State, one of the victims of the recent kidnapping incidents at schools in the State.
While extending its sympathies to the victims and their families, the PDP said it is regrettable that under the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led administration, attacks on schools seem to have no solutions.
“Under this APC administration, the kidnapping of students has become a norm rather than an exception. Sadly, the government’s response has been, at best, half-hearted and disparate.
“We admonish the President to deploy even half the energy, tact, and strategies he and his team invest in constricting the political space against the opposition, toward building a security architecture that protects lives.
“A whole-of-society approach to security, firmly backed by genuine political will, community engagement, and institutional coordination, can deliver the sustainable results that Nigerians have been promised and denied for too long. The government must choose between taking on security headlong or owning up to its failure,” it said in a statement by the National Publicity Secretary, Comrade Ini Ememobong, on Monday night.
The party said Nigerians now watched with horror as daily killings were being treated as normal occurrences.
It noted: “Under this administration, insecurity is no longer a crisis in Nigeria, it is now the lived reality of our citizens. What was once an alarming anomaly has been normalised by a government that has demonstrated, repeatedly, that it lacks either the capacity to fight it or the will to reverse it.
“This latest abduction and killing is one addition to a now endless catalogue of victims, catalysing a ransom economy that has quietly consumed trillions of Naira from the pockets of ordinary Nigerians.”
The party called for more determined efforts by the government beyond the usual lamentation and provision of relief materials.
It added: “We extend our deepest sympathies to the families of the deceased and kidnap victims. We charge the government to move beyond their vintage performative assurances of bringing culprits to book. Instead, they should deploy practical, sustained, and results-driven security interventions. Not press releases or condolences only.
“The targeting of schools is not incidental. It is a direct assault on Nigeria’s future. For a country already carrying one of the highest out-of-school child populations in the world, every attack on a school deepens a crisis that was already at emergency levels.
“Left unchecked, this will inevitably result in a drop in school attendance and lower literacy penetration nationwide. The long-term cost to national development is a burden no future administration should be left to inherit.”