The African Democratic Congress has said the killing of about 170 people in Kaiama Local Government Area of Kwara State is evidence of a total breakdown of security under the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu-led Federal Government.
The party said the strategies adopted by the government to address insecurity have failed, adding that what is being witnessed across the country is not the elimination of terror but its redistribution.
In a statement issued on Friday in Abuja by its National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, the ADC condemned the massacre in Kwara State and questioned the fate of the President’s declaration of a state of emergency on security, as well as the promised recruitment of thousands of police officers. The party said the persistence of mass killings suggests that these measures are either ineffective or were merely rhetorical.
The ADC also raised concerns about whether the heightened security activities observed last year, following remarks by the President of the United States, were carried out mainly to gain international approval rather than to genuinely tackle insecurity within the country.
According to the party, the magnitude and frequency of killings nationwide since then indicate that the steps claimed by the government to have been taken are not yielding results, reinforcing the view that the current approach only spreads violence from one area to another instead of ending it.
ADC said: “This horrific massacre is one of the worst atrocities recorded in recent times and stands as a painful reminder of the complete collapse of security across the country. We extend our deepest condolences to the families of the victims and to the people of Kwara State, who have once again been abandoned to mourn their dead in a nation that appears incapable of protecting its citizens.
“As many analysts have noted, what makes this tragedy even more troubling are growing concerns that the perpetrators may be part of terrorist elements recently dispersed by United States Christmas Day military action in Sokoto State, now relocating to other states due to weak internal security coordination.
“The net effect, which has become self-evident from these industrial-scale killings in areas hitherto considered safe, is that the Tinubu administration is not winning the war against terror. It is merely redistributing it.”
