Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has launched one of his most direct attacks yet on President Bola Tinubu’s administration, declaring that a government which cannot stop the killing of schoolteachers and the abduction of children has failed the most fundamental test of leadership.
Atiku’s statement, issued through his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, came on Tuesday in response to two separate incidents: the killing of an abducted teacher in Oyo State, and ongoing attacks on communities in Katsina State that have continued to claim lives and displace residents.
He did not ease into the criticism. He said the pattern that has played out under Tinubu’s watch has become tragically predictable — armed men strike, lives are lost, the President issues a condemnation, threatens that perpetrators will face “the full wrath of the law,” and the cycle begins again at the next attack. He called this governing by obituary statements and said Nigerians have heard it enough.
“President Tinubu must stop governing by obituary statements. Enough of the recycled outrage. Enough of the empty threats. Nigerians are dying, and this government keeps responding with press releases,” Atiku said.
The Oyo attack that triggered the statement was among the most disturbing to hit the country in recent weeks. Armed men invaded three schools in the Oriire Local Government Area of Oyo State last Friday, abducting seven teachers and 39 students, including very young children from a nursery school. Two people were killed during the initial assault. By Monday morning, a video confirmed that the mathematics teacher among the abductees had been executed by the captors while pleading for help. Governor Seyi Makinde confirmed the killing after a security meeting and described it as an act of terror his government would not surrender to.
In Katsina, communities in multiple parts of the state have continued to experience attacks by armed groups, with killings, kidnappings and property destruction reported repeatedly. The situation in the state has persisted for years and shows little sign of decisive improvement.
Atiku argued that both incidents reflect a deeper truth about the current state of Nigeria’s security: that criminal groups no longer fear the Nigerian state. He described the authority of government in many parts of the country as having collapsed — not weakened, not challenged, but collapsed.
“When terrorists can invade schools, abduct children and teachers, butcher pregnant women, sack entire communities, and disappear without consequence, it is because the authority of the state has collapsed,” he said.
He went further, raising concern about what he described as the government’s alleged attempts to suppress the circulation of graphic evidence of attacks — videos and images that show the reality of what is happening to Nigerians. He said if a government is more focused on managing the optics of violence than on stopping the violence itself, then what it is doing is not merely incompetence — it is cruelty.
Atiku called for the immediate rescue of all abducted victims in Oyo State, intensified security operations in vulnerable communities and a comprehensive overhaul of Nigeria’s security architecture. He made clear that statements of condolence, however sincerely meant, are not a policy.
This was not his first statement on insecurity in recent weeks. Earlier this month, Atiku had condemned the death of former House of Representatives member Abba Anas Adamu, who was abducted by bandits along the Kaduna-Abuja highway on May 3 and died in captivity nine days later despite his family’s efforts to secure his release. In that statement, he described Nigeria as “under siege” and accused the Tinubu administration of being “either overwhelmed, indifferent, or dangerously incompetent” in the face of a national emergency. He questioned what the death of a former federal lawmaker on one of the country’s busiest highways said about the safety of ordinary citizens.
Weeks before that, following Tinubu’s visit to Plateau State after the Angwan Rukuba attacks — during which the President famously declared “This experience will not repeat itself” — Atiku and Peter Obi had both pointed to subsequent attacks in Benue, Nasarawa, Kaduna and Zamfara as evidence that the government’s security assurances were hollow.
The Tinubu administration has defended its handling of security. The President condemned the Oyo attack and deployed additional resources, with the Inspector-General of Police said to be personally overseeing rescue operations. The administration has also pointed to military operations against bandit groups in the North West and broader security initiatives across the country.
For Atiku, none of it is enough — and he says Nigerians agree. With 2027 approaching, security is shaping up as the central issue on which opposition politicians intend to hold the government to account.