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Written by Oscar Okifo
The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has condemned the government of President Bola Tinubu over the killing of about 170 people in Kiama Local Government Area of Kwara State, saying the incident was evidence of a complete breakdown in security across the country.
The party said the measures introduced by the government to address insecurity have failed, adding that the government’s approach amounts to redistributing terrorism rather than eliminating it.
In a statement issued in Abuja on Friday by the National Public Relations Secretary, Malam Bolaji Abdullahi, the party condemned the killings and questioned the validity of the president’s state of emergency declaration on security and the promise to hire thousands of police officers.
The party said the continued occurrence of mass killings across the country suggests that government security measures are either ineffective or exist only as public declarations.
The ADC also questioned whether the increased security operations witnessed last year following the US president’s comments on the security situation in Nigeria were merely stagecraft aimed at gaining international recognition rather than a genuine effort to protect the population.
The party said the scale and frequency of killings across the country shows that any measures the federal government claims to have taken are not working.
“This horrific massacre is one of the worst atrocities recorded in recent years and is a stark reminder of the complete breakdown of security across the country,” the statement said.
The statement expressed condolences to the families of the victims and the people of Kwara State, noting that Nigerians continue to be left alone to mourn the dead in a country that is increasingly unable to guarantee the safety of its citizens.
It also raised concerns that the attackers may be some of the terrorist elements ousted by the US military operation in Sokoto State over the Christmas period and may now be relocating to other states due to weak security coordination in the country.
The party says the Tinubu government has not won the war on terrorism, but has merely shifted violence from one region to another.
He added that incidents such as the mass abductions in Kaduna and the mass killings in Kwara highlight serious structural deficiencies in Nigeria’s internal security architecture, particularly in intelligence gathering, border security, interagency coordination and emergency response.
He also questioned the status of the president’s highly publicized national security emergency declaration announced in November 2025, asking whether it was a sincere effort or a response to international and domestic pressure.
The party recalled that the President announced a major increase in the Nigeria Police Force as part of the emergency response, reportedly approving the recruitment of tens of thousands of personnel to strengthen internal security across the country.
“Nigerians have a right to know what happened to that promise,” the ADC said, questioning whether recruits were hired, trained and deployed, or whether the process was stalled.
He argued that if conscription had been effective, vulnerable rural areas like Kwara State would not have been exposed to mass attacks.
The party also criticized what it described as a mostly performative security response by the federal government, saying the urgency shown last year had since waned.
It argued that the government’s actions appear to be more focused on optics than on implementing sustainable and effective measures to protect life and property.
The report asserted that Nigeria’s security crisis is now beyond the capacities and capabilities of the Tinubu-led government, noting that accountability has steadily declined while killings have become commonplace across the country.
According to the coalition’s platform, the federal government’s response has been limited to expressing condolences and blaming each tragedy rather than stopping the violence or addressing its root causes.
The party called on the federal government to reveal the true security situation in the country, explain the announced recruitment of police officers and clearly explain how it plans to stop the spread and transfer of terrorist groups across state lines.
“Nigeria cannot continue on this path of denial and inaction. Lives are not statistics and governance is not public relations,” the party said, adding that it stands with Nigerians in calling for competent leadership, honest governance and a security strategy that protects lives rather than reacting to tragedies after they occur.
