Presidency questions Obasanjo’s moral authority on security failures, hails Tinubu’s response

By : Terhemba Daka

Date: 30 November 2025 9:11pm WAT

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Former President of Nigeria Olusegun Obasanjo . (Photo by Amanuel Sileshi / AFP) (Photo by AMANUEL SILESHI/AFP via Getty Images)

Former President of Nigeria Olusegun Obasanjo . (Photo by Amanuel Sileshi / AFP) (Photo by AMANUEL SILESHI/AFP via Getty Images)

The Presidency, on Sunday, launched a blistering attack on former President Olusegun Obasanjo and a cohort of what it described as “habitual presidential aspirants,” accusing them of hypocrisy and engaging in “pseudo statesmanship” over their recent criticism of President Bola Tinubu’s handling of national security.

In a strongly worded statement on his X handle, Special Adviser to the President on Media and Public Communication, Sunday Dare, said current attempts to portray the Tinubu administration as incapable of protecting Nigerians were “ignoble” and deliberately ignore the hard truth: Nigeria is confronting a layered, fast-evolving and transnational terrorist threat.

He argued that those now issuing public commentaries on security were the same individuals who “looked away” while terrorism quietly took root under their own watch.

Nigerians, he said, “know better” than to be misled by such revisionism.

Dare condemned suggestions that Nigeria should lean heavily on foreign governments for internal security support, describing the proposal as “capitulation, not statesmanship.”

Any former leader advancing such advice, he said, must first confront his own failure to act decisively when early extremist cells were forming across the country.

He noted that Boko Haram’s ideological foundations and earliest camps were incubated during Obasanjo’s civilian presidency, warning that what could have been halted as a fringe sect was allowed to metamorphose into a violent insurgency and later a regional franchise aligned with global jihadist movements.

“Let’s call them what they are: terrorists,” Dare declared, insisting that those attacking villages, kidnapping citizens, destroying infrastructure and undermining state authority fit the definition, regardless of the banner they operate under.

According to him, Nigeria now faces a “multilayered terrorist ecosystem” comprising internationally designated groups, ISIS- and al-Qaeda-linked networks across the Sahel, local violent extremists masquerading as bandits, cross-border terror cells exploiting porous frontiers and hybrid criminal-terror organisations operating in ungoverned spaces.

On Tinubu’s response, Dare maintained that the President has deployed a clear, multidimensional strategy suited to the evolving threat environment.

On the kinetic front, he cited upgraded military capabilities, intensified intelligence-led operations, the disruption of logistics networks and the retaking and holding of contested territory.

The non-kinetic pillars, he explained, include restoring governance in underserved areas, rolling out economic stabilisation programmes, deepening counter-radicalisation efforts, and building community trust to deny terrorists the local support base they seek to exploit.

He stressed that Tinubu’s “whole-of-government, whole-of-nation” approach remains central to defeating terrorism, since “terrorists thrive in division; Nigeria defeats them through unity.”

While Nigeria will continue to cooperate with allies, including the United States, Dare insisted the government would not outsource its sovereignty or “raise a white flag because someone who once had the chance lost his nerve.”

He warned that disparaging comments from former leaders risk emboldening violent extremists, handing them psychological victories at a time when the nation is consolidating gains.

“A real statesman offers support, not soundbites,” he said.

Dare added that if Obasanjo truly wishes to help, he should acknowledge the past failures that allowed terrorists to gain a foothold and support ongoing efforts rather than undermine them.

“Let him deploy his position and connections for Nigeria, as he has done for other countries, not seek to run down an administration fully engaged on multiple fronts: economic turnaround, security provision and critical infrastructure renewal.”

He affirmed that under President Tinubu, Nigeria will defeat terrorism, noting that the President remains committed to securing every inch of the country through strength, unity and a coordinated whole-of-government strategy.

“This administration will not be distracted by selective amnesia wrapped in elder-statesmanship,” he said, “nor will it allow those who midwifed Nigeria’s early security failures to rewrite history.”

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