Former deputy director of the Department of State Services (DSS), Dennis Amachree, has urged President Bola Tinubu to temporarily set aside political campaigns and concentrate on addressing Nigeria’s security situation.

Amachree, who was a guest on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics, said efforts to reform the country’s security architecture must begin with the Commander-in-Chief, stressing that the responsibility ultimately rests with the President.

Amachree acknowledged the political pressures facing the President but argued that security should take precedence over electoral ambitions.

The ex-DSS director said, “Sometimes I feel sorry for the President because he is dealing with many variables. As he takes one step, he is also careful about his political party and supporters, and trying not to step on certain toes. But if he wants to return as President, just as Jonathan did, he should stop the political campaigns and face the security problem frontally. Solve it first. If we need help from outside, get it. Then we can return to campaigning. If we are campaigning while people are being attacked, I don’t think citizens will even come out to vote.”

“We can begin [with] the Commander-in-Chief [Bola Tinubu]. He is the one handling the problem and will be supported by the legislature with the necessary laws to do what needs to be done. If they see that he is serious, I believe the National Assembly will support him wholeheartedly. The buck stops on his table, and that is where we should start,” he said.

‘State Police Delay’

The ex-DSS deputy director also criticised the slow pace of reforms aimed at strengthening the nation’s security framework, noting that urgent legislation often takes far too long despite the National Assembly’s ability to pass bills quickly when necessary.

“To boost our security architecture, it is taking forever. I have seen in Nigeria where, within a week, bills are passed, and there is something that would have been passed a long time ago; it was just a few days ago they just passed it for the state police to be established, and remember, it is going to go to all the states to get their own consensus.

“Now, why were we wasting all that time till now? Because of this problem, we have i think there should be more attention given to it. We are not the worst country when it comes to kidnapping; other countries have been very much into it,” he said.

His remarks come amid growing public concern over insecurity across the country, including the abduction of dozens of people, among them schoolchildren and teachers, in Oyo State.

The incident triggered protests and led the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) to declare an indefinite strike in affected public schools.

Safety Of Nigerians?

Bulama Bukarti is a Senior Fellow, Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.

Also speaking on the programme, security expert and lawyer Bulama Bukarti described the death of retired Major General Rabe Abubakar in the custody of armed bandits as a disturbing indication of the country’s deteriorating security situation.

“The death of General Rabe in captivity was a big shocker. If a retired military general and former spokesperson of the Nigerian Army could be abducted, held for about two weeks and eventually killed, it tells us that no Nigerian is safe. Rank and institutional history count for nothing in the insecurity situation we have found ourselves in,” he said.

Bukarti added that the incident demonstrated the growing boldness of criminal gangs, noting that the retired general was abducted on a public highway in Matazu Local Government Area rather than in a remote forest.

“They publicly paraded him on television and social media and openly negotiated with the government, demanding the release of their members in exchange for him. That tells you how audacious they have become,” he said.

According to Bukarti, the objective of such terrorist groups is to instil fear and erode public confidence in the government.

“The inability to track and rescue him before he was killed shows that our insecurity is escalating. What was once confined to the North-East has spread to the North-West, the North-Central, and now the South-West. Nigeria’s security threat is now a national problem rather than a regional one.”

Retired Major General Rabe Abubakar, who was a military officer and former spokesperson for the Armed Forces of Nigeria, died while in the captivity of armed bandits in Katsina State, a development later confirmed by the Katsina State government. (Channels TV)

Update news