By Ikeddy ISIGUZO

WHAT is President Bola Ahmed Tinubu so afraid of that the renowed strategist quakes in his shoes when he wants to discuss insecurity? Why the incoherence in before the glaring tall evidences that the insecurity Nigeria faces cannot by addressed with words?

Some say that “offending the North” scares Tinubu. He would do anything to keep the North happy, or better still ensure that nothing suggests that he would attack the terrorists, though government confirms that it knows the locations of the terrorists who are making life more challenging for Nigerians.

Is the North happy that terrorists attack communities, kill as many as they want, abduct child and adults, destroy farms, burn houses, and leave with warnings that they would return? And surely they return to repeat the process over and over.

Others claim that Tinubu places religion over Nigeria. As the Commander-in-Chief, would not allow Nigeria’s military fight the terrorists who mainly of the same religion as the President.

There is more.

Elections are too close for Tinubu to take firm decision on anything that is capable of harming his chances at the polls. He needs votes from the North to be re-elected.

Nothing is more important to Tinubu than being re-elected. Nothing.

The obtuse retorts to any suggestions about the war on terror create some impressions:

. The President is pained about the situation

. The President knows what to do to the exclusion of other ideas

. The President has the best idea

. The President has made sacrifices over the issue, the most significant of which was not making a foreign trip.

What results have the President’s pain produced? The over 200 school pupils kidnapped in Papiri in Niger State and their teachers are still in captivity. After a full week of blame shifting, government provided a response to the country on the Papiri abductions.

National Security Adviser Nuhu Ribadu took this presidential message to hope to families, guardians, and a concerned world, “The children are where they are and will come back safely. I give you the assurance”. It was at the occasion that Ribadu spoke about a cancelled trip as one the biggest sacrifices the President had made since the abductions.

The Papiri pupils are still in captivity. All we have to hold to is Ribadu’s promise. There is no urgency, no consideration. The children would be back safely, as if living with bandits was a school excursion.

Nobody who knows that Ribadu is a chief promoter of the non-kinetic approach to countering terrorism would be surprised about at his calmness.

Ribadu wants negotiations with the terrorists, amnesty for the terrorists, programmes to address poverty in the affected, and peace meetings with the attackers.

These positions foreclose going after the attackers who have kept attacking communities and ruling those communities with their own rules.

Advice for more troops, more equipment, and more funding would all be defeated if the final decision is to be non-kinetic. Why should we buy guns that will not be used? What is the use of more recruitments into the various security agencies if they will not fight?

The terrorists know we are not inclined to fight. It is to their advantage to keep attending those empty mining.

Assistance from abroad will be kinetic. It will include combats, real attacks on the terrorists, wherever they are attack.

Tinubu is afraid of assistance that he cannot control or at least manage it. He dreads that the complications could impact on his administration in ways that he cannot control.

Measured words are used to discuss terrorism, the efforts of our troops are drowned in the non-kinetic dilemma, and Tinubu, as Commander-in-Chief, is not talking tough and giving orders that will make terrorism a dangerous business in Nigeria. If terrorists know that they can be rewarded with ransom, be allowed to celebrate their killings and successful raids of our communities, why should they stop?

Tinubu is crippled by fears of what he, personally, not Nigeria, could lose by confronting the terrorists. Is his commitment to Nigerians or terrorists?

We are treating terrorism like a joke, huge joke. Tinubu promises us a list of terrorism financiers. Why do Nigerians need the list? Why not go after them? We will see the results? Or are we also negotiating with them?

Our military and other security agencies needed the boldness from the President’s pronouncements to motivate their actions at their different war theatres.

Tinubu’s indecisive positive affects everyone. “Trumps is on our neck,” Senator President Obong Godswill Akpabio, the other day told his colleagues in one of his off-handed statements in the Senate.

Imagine that the impression up there is that there nothing wrong with terrorism killing our people, appropriating our territory, crippling Nigeria, spreading fear all over the land.

According to Akpabio, Trump is the problem. Akpabio does not seem to be speaking for himself. His attitude is representative of the attitude of most members of his class. Trump asking them to stop the killings is a problem.

Without Trump, the parties will continue, thousands could die, there would still be millions to ensure the killings do not scratch the population of Nigeria and annual budgets for everything would be passed.

Tinubu should die to his paralysing fears and deal elite the terrorists, no matter who they, and what they believe.

Hundreds of defenceless children are in forests that we claim to know. They are not safe until they are returned to their parents and guardians.

Nigeria needs to be safe again. Security is not everyone’s responsibility, the way it is stated these days as reasons for the massive failures that have put Nigerians in under-estimated peril.

The buck stops at the President’s table, in this instance, Tinubu or has anything changed?

Finally…

MRS Remi Tinubu, the President’s wife, held a dinner for Senators on 28 November 2025 when the country was in mourning. The self-promoted “Mother of the Nation” was feasting when hundreds of abducted children were in the forest spending their young lives terrorists. What a mother!

SENATE President Obong Godswill Akpabio was a major enabler of Remi Tinubu’s dinner. The glee over him as he announced to his colleagues “our mother” has invited us to dinner, was another reminder of the friviolities he promotes at the Senate when he is not disrupting proceeding by consistently coming late to sittings and hurriedly taking over from the Deputy Senate President Barau Jibrin who plays the "first half" of the proceedings.

Akpabio has a knack for announcing dinners. On June 14, 2023, Akpabio had told his colleagues: “There will be a dinner for the Senate President and Deputy Senate President at 7:30 pm today. It’s hosted by Senator Dantuse Mohammed, it’s his initiative. Times are tough, so wherever you see free food, please avail yourself!”

PEOPLE are shocked that President Tinubu nominated Senator Adamu Garba Talba of Yobe State, who died in July at 73, as an ambassador. A perspective to this is that Tinubu’s supporters could mark this nomination as “Another Promise Kept”. Muhammadu Buhari who preceded Tinubu was famous for nominating the dead for appointments. Senator Talba’s nomination should remind us that Tinubu promised to continue with Buhari’s way.

A TREN’ING video of the jest Nigerians are making of the US’ intervention on terrorist attacks has threatened that voracious mosquitoes will make their mission impossible.

TERRORISM in North-East, North-West, and North Central has left no room to pay attention to the consistent attacks on buses from South-East, South West, and parts of North-Central, to Abuja. Hardly a day passes with reports of these attacks. The security agencies have not found an answers to the attacks.

•ISIGUZO is a major commentator on minor issues

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