Insecurity: Tinubu must act decisively, Owolabi Salis warns

File photo of Owolabi Salis

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A former Lagos State governorship candidate, Owolabi Salis, has urged President Bola Tinubu to adopt an urgent and aggressive strategy to confront the country’s worsening insecurity, warning that Nigeria must not wait until the ‘dare-devil bandits attack the Presidential Villa’ before taking decisive action.

Salis, who issued the warning in a statement on Monday in Abuja, said the recent wave of abductions and terror attacks showed that criminal groups had become emboldened, especially with the onset of the dry season—a period security analysts say often triggers heightened insurgent activity.

“We should not wait until these dare-devil bandits overrun the country or even attack the Presidential Villa and the strategic legislative bloc before it dawns on us that they really mean business,” he cautioned.

He said Tinubu and Vice President Kashim Shettima must draw inspiration from the late Chadian President Idriss Déby, renowned for personally leading offensives against militants.

“Although I am not saying here that the President and his Vice should go out to the battle-front to lead any battle, what I am rather trying to commend unto them is the need to imbibe the monomaniac fury with which the late Chadian President tried to grapple with the knotty question of terrorism during his lifetime,” Salis said.

He stressed the urgency of building Nigeria into a true military superpower capable of deterring threats internally and commanding respect globally.

According to him, Nigeria’s military must develop “sufficient numerical superiority capable of responding with impregnable resilience and adroit competence to multi-faceted areas of threat and tiresome crises of protracted nature as might possibly arise from time to time.”

Salis also called for better welfare for troops, saying poor remuneration was killing morale and discouraging the influx of quality recruits.

“Meaningful efforts also need to be made not only to boost the sagging morale of the existing fighting force, but also to attract a massive flow of prospective entrants, by reviewing their meagre earnings to a meaningful proportion commensurate with the life-saving nature of their job and the ever looming danger to their own lives,” he said.

He recalled a recent incident in which a senior army officer was killed by ISWAP militants, describing it as a tragic embarrassment that exposed the vulnerabilities of Nigeria’s defence architecture.

He said, “It was particularly horrible that the whole army of a nation which should constitute a terrific dread-nought terror to enemies and armed to the teeth at all times had to fight itself to a frightful escape rather than formidably stand up to rout the bandits ruthlessly to supine stupor.”

He lamented that the superior firepower of the attackers forced the troops—including a Brigadier-General—into a chaotic retreat, leading to the senior officer’s gruesome death.

“This indeed is not only unfortunate but one expose too many and irredeemably costly as it has gone a long way in demystifying the nation, laying it vulnerable and liable to be taken for granted by lesser nations,” he added.

Salis said he had been deeply troubled by the tragedy, adding that the officer’s death “spawned such a monstrous nightmare that I could hardly sleep,” while imagining the pain endured by the victim and the lasting trauma suffered by his family.

Salis’ warning comes barely 24 hours after the release of 100 pupils abducted from St. Mary’s Private Catholic Primary and Secondary School in Papiri, Niger State.

Gunmen had stormed the school on November 21 in a well-coordinated night raid that lasted about three hours.

The attackers, who arrived on motorbikes around 2 a.m., abducted a total of 315 persons—303 students and 12 teachers—marking one of Nigeria’s largest mass kidnappings since the 2014 abduction of the Chibok schoolgirls.

Security forces and local hunters launched extensive search operations across forests and riverine terrain. Fifty students escaped within the first 24 hours, but 265 victims remained in captivity until a breakthrough led to the release of 100 on Sunday.

The attack has once again amplified public anxiety and renewed calls for a comprehensive, proactive security strategy—echoing the fears highlighted in Salis’ warning.

The PUNCH journalist, Adebayo, has over 20 years of experience covering politics, health, metro, entertainment and properties

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