ADC to Tinubu: You’re becoming a professional statement-maker on insecurity

By Luminous Jannamike, Abuja

The African Democratic Congress, ADC, has accused President Bola Tinubu of becoming ‘a professional statement-maker’ on insecurity, demanding timelines and regular updates on efforts to rescue 176 residents of Woro community in Kaiama Local Government Area of Kwara State who have remained in captivity since they were abducted on February 3, 2026.

For the ADC, the issue is not that some abductees have been rescued. It is that families whose relatives have spent months in captivity say they are still waiting for answers.

The party argued that the government cannot celebrate one rescue while leaving other victims wondering whether they have been forgotten, insisting that every Nigerian life deserves the same urgency and attention.

In a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, the opposition party linked its concerns to Friday’s peaceful protest by Kaiama residents over the fate of the 176 abductees, saying recent attacks across Kwara, Zamfara, Benue, Kebbi, and Borno states showed that insecurity remained a national emergency rather than isolated incidents.

“On one of the defining challenges of this government, the president is increasingly seen as a professional statement-maker, while communities continue to bury their dead, search for the missing, and wait for rescues that never seem to come,” Abdullahi said.

The party said President Tinubu’s public celebration of the recent rescue of abductees in Oyo State had inevitably triggered fresh questions about the fate of hundreds of other Nigerians still being held by kidnappers and insurgents across the country.

According to the ADC, “Every successful rescue of abducted Nigerians deserves to be celebrated. But the president must ensure that his actions do not create the impression that the value of a Nigerian life depends on where the victim comes from or whether the tragedy attracts national headlines. Leadership demands equal compassion for every citizen.”

The party said residents of Kaiama Local Government Area took to the streets on Friday, July 24, in a peaceful protest after more than 170 days without any word on their abducted relatives, describing the demonstration as the desperate cry of families who feared they had been abandoned.

“Their protest was not political. It was the cry of citizens who fear that their loved ones have been forgotten,” the statement said.

Beyond Kwara, the ADC said the security crisis continued to deepen across the country, pointing to the abduction of at least 40 residents, mostly women and children, from 11 communities in the Mayanchi District of the Maru Local Government Area of Zamfara State; renewed attacks in Benue State’s Sankera axis; the kidnapping of Kebbi State High Court Judge Justice Faruku Hassan Bunza from his residence in the early hours of Sunday; and persistent insurgent attacks that have displaced communities in parts of Borno State.

Against that backdrop, the party said Nigerians deserved more than reassuring statements from the presidency.

“What progress has been made in securing the release of the 176 abductees from Kaiama? What is being done to rescue the women and children taken in Zamfara? What efforts are underway to secure the release of Justice Bunza? What updates are available on victims in Borno and other affected communities?” the ADC asked.

“The president owes Nigerians more than broad assurances. He owes them regular updates, timelines, and evidence that no Nigerian community has been abandoned,” it added.

The opposition party also questioned President Tinubu’s repeated assurances that insecurity would soon become a thing of the past, arguing that such declarations were steadily losing their reassuring effect because they had not been matched by visible outcomes.

“Hope cannot survive indefinitely on declarations alone. There comes a point when repeated assurances, unaccompanied by visible results, cease to reassure. They simply become another headline in a long cycle of official optimism and public disappointment,” the statement added.

The ADC urged the President to back his words with decisive action, insisting that those abducted in Kwara, the women and children taken in Zamfara, victims of renewed attacks in Benue, and communities under siege in Borno and Justice Bunza all deserved the same urgency and presidential attention accorded to victims recently rescued elsewhere.

“Leadership is not measured by how quickly government celebrates a rescue; it is measured by whether no Nigerian is left behind or forgotten,” the party said.