ENUGU, Nigeria (VOICE OF NAIJA)- Former Vice President and presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress, Atiku Abubakar, has criticised the Federal Government’s handling of insecurity, saying Nigeria has failed to learn from past attacks despite repeated waves of terrorism, banditry and kidnapping.
Atiku, in a statement issued on Thursday through his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Mr Phrank Shaibu, argued that terrorist groups continue to evolve and improve their tactics while government responses remain stagnant and reactive.
He said the worsening spread of insecurity across the country shows that Nigeria’s security framework is no longer effective in addressing modern threats.
According to him, “The terrorists are learning from every attack. They study their successes and failures. They refine their tactics. They identify vulnerabilities. They adapt and strike again.”
He questioned why government institutions had failed to adopt similar adaptive strategies, insisting that Nigeria risks repeating cycles of violence if lessons from past tragedies are ignored.
“The question Nigerians must ask is simple: Why isn’t the government doing the same?” he said.
Atiku warned that the country can no longer rely on what he described as a “business-as-usual” approach to counterterrorism, stressing the need for urgent reforms to Nigeria’s security architecture.
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He cited recurring attacks across different regions, noting that insecurity had expanded from the North-West and North-East into the Middle Belt and other parts of the country.
He referenced major incidents such as the Chibok schoolgirls’ abduction and recent kidnappings in Oyo State, saying that despite national outrage and repeated promises, little has changed structurally.
“A nation that refuses to learn from its tragedies is condemned to relive them,” he said.
Atiku also faulted what he described as over-reliance on centrally designed counterterrorism models, arguing that more attention should be given to community-level intelligence and local realities.
He called for the establishment of a Terrorism Violence Peer Review Mechanism that would document lessons from past attacks and integrate them into national security planning.
He also proposed specialised Counterterrorism Fusion Centres across the six geopolitical zones to enhance intelligence sharing among security agencies, including the military, police, DSS and civil defence corps.
According to him, defeating terrorism requires intelligence superiority, stronger border security and disruption of terrorist financing networks, not just military deployment.
He further linked insecurity to governance challenges such as poverty, unemployment and neglect, which he said continue to fuel recruitment into extremist groups.
“We must recognise that terrorism is not merely a security challenge; it is also a governance challenge,” he said.
Atiku also proposed a national support framework for victims of terrorism to provide psychological, educational and economic assistance to affected communities.
He questioned the effectiveness of Nigeria’s security spending, noting that despite trillions of naira allocated to defence over the years, insecurity has worsened.
“What is particularly troubling is that despite trillions of naira budgeted for defence and security over the years, Nigerians are less secure today than they were a decade ago,” he said.
Atiku urged the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to adopt urgent reforms and move beyond rhetoric in tackling insecurity.
“Nigerians deserve nothing less than a counterterrorism framework that is proactive, evidence-based, transparent, and firmly rooted in our domestic realities,” he said.