On Tuesday, the Presidency branded ex-Vice President Atiku Abubakar’s statement calling for President Bola Tinubu’s resignation in response to escalating killings and kidnappings in Nigeria as “reckless”.
In a statement, Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, stated that, contrary to Atiku’s statements, Tinubu is in charge of Nigeria’s security.
Atiku, Nigeria’s Vice President from May 1999 to May 2007, was one of Tinubu’s key competitors in the 2023 presidential election, finishing second with 6,984,520 votes. Tinubu, a former Lagos State governor, won with 8,794,726 votes.
Atiku, the candidate of the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), earlier on Tuesday, descended on Tinubu for “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 others,” Atiku wrote in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
However, in its response, the Presidency said Atiku’s statement accusing Tinubu of “fiddling amidst some security and economic challenges is to say the least, reckless” and “fell short of what is expected from an elder statesman”.
“We like to believe that Alhaji Atiku is still not nursing hangover of his electoral defeat and now latches on any issue to attack President Tinubu.
“President Tinubu did not travel without informing Nigerians of his whereabout. He announced a private visit to France and announced a return date.
“While in France, President Tinubu has been following developments at home and he is on top of the situation in the country. Today’s inauguration of the Tripartite Committee on National Minimum wage bore his imprimatur .
“He is in constant touch with his officials and security chiefs and has directed them to stamp out every form of criminality in the country,” the statement read.
“If Alhaji Atiku is really concerned about security issues and not playing cheap politics, he should have known that President Tinubu is on top of issues and working hard to restore peace to every part of our country.”