The Presidency has criticized former President Olusegun Obasanjo for his comments on Nigeria’s worsening security situation, asserting that he is not in a position to fault President Bola Tinubu’s handling of national security.
According to the Presidency, terrorism began to take hold during Obasanjo’s tenure.
The response, issued by President Tinubu’s Special Adviser on Media and Public Communication, Sunday Dare, via his verified X account, dismissed Obasanjo’s call for foreign assistance as a misguided proposal that would undermine Nigeria’s sovereignty.
In a statement titled “Between Tinubu’s Capability And The Ignobility Of Pseudo Statesmanship,” Dare accused Obasanjo and other perennial critics of overlooking the roots of Nigeria’s security crisis while attempting to judge the current administration.
The Presidency maintained that Nigeria is contending with a complex mix of terrorist threats, international, regional, and local, including globally designated groups, ISIS and al-Qaeda-linked cells, local extremist factions, cross-border networks, and criminal-terror hybrids.
These groups, it says, collaborate to carry out killings, kidnappings, raids, and attacks on infrastructure.
The statement further alleges that Boko Haram’s earliest cells emerged and expanded during Obasanjo’s administration, eventually evolving into a violent insurgency and a regional terror network.
It argued that it is therefore ironic for Obasanjo to criticize a sitting president now tasked with managing the long-term consequences of those developments.
