The Northern Ethnic Youth Group Assembly has accused Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi of politicising insecurity and urged them to stop using attacks on schoolchildren for campaign points.
NEYGA was responding to comments made after gunmen abducted pupils in Oyo and Borno states. Obi said the Tinubu government lacked the capacity to protect schoolchildren and had turned them into “pawns in a ransom economy.” Atiku said the situation made a mockery of the Safe Schools initiative and argued that Tinubu had no moral or political reason to remain in office if abducted citizens remained in captivity.
The group said it was unethical and unpatriotic for both men to use the plight of children to score political points. NEYGA argued that Atiku and Obi contributed to Nigeria’s current security challenges. It said Boko Haram founder Mohammed Yusuf was allowed to flourish during Atiku’s tenure as vice president, and that Obi served as an adviser to a federal government that failed to confront terrorism early.
“Had the government in which Atiku served as Vice President nipped Boko Haram founder Mohammed Yusuf in the bud, and tackled the menace of out-of-school children early enough, perhaps we wouldn’t have found ourselves in this type of insecurity challenges,” the group said.
NEYGA advised both politicians to learn from opposition leaders in the US, Israel and Kenya, who rallied behind their governments during major attacks. It cited the response to 9/11 in the US, the Munich massacre in Israel, the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack, and the 2013 Westgate mall attack in Kenya.
“We find it strange and amusing that Atiku Abubakar, under whose Vice Presidency Mohammed Yusuf, the founder of Boko Haram flourished, will be talking of insecurity in Nigeria as if he and his boss didn’t nurture this Frankenstein monster,” the group said.
NEYGA called on Atiku and Obi to be more circumspect and support national efforts to end insecurity instead of exploiting it for political gain.
