ATIKU SLAMS TINUBU: “KIDNAPPERS WALK FREE” AS GOVT CELEBRATES KEBBI SCHOOLGIRLS’ RELEASE – “NOT A TROPHY, A NATIONAL DISGRACE”

By Ogungbayi Adeyemi Beedee
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Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has lambasted the Tinubu administration for “celebrating incompetence as heroism” after the release of 24 abducted schoolgirls in Kebbi State, insisting the kidnappers’ escape exposes a “national disgrace” where bandits operate as an “alternative government.”

In a fiery statement issued Wednesday by his spokesman Paul Ibe, Atiku rejected the presidency’s narrative of a “successful rescue,” calling it propaganda that insults Nigerians. The critique targets Special Adviser Bayo Onanuga’s Arise News TV interview, where he credited DSS and military “real-time tracking” and negotiations for freeing the girls along with 52 Niger State students and 38 Kwara worshippers without ransom.

“Under Tinubu, terrorists/bandits have become an alternative government negotiating, collecting ransom, and walking away untouched while the presidency celebrates their ‘compliance’,” Ibe quoted Atiku. “No serious nation applauds itself for negotiating with terrorists it claims to have under surveillance. No responsible government congratulates itself for allowing abductors to walk back into the forests to kidnap again.”

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Atiku questioned: “If security agencies could ‘track’ the kidnappers… why were these criminals not arrested, neutralised, or dismantled on the spot?” He slammed the routine “phone calls” between officials and bandits as evidence of complicity, urging protection over “fairy tales by moonlight.”

The girls, abducted November 17 from Government Girls’ Secondary School, Maga, Kebbi where Vice Principal Hassan Makuku was killed were freed Tuesday after negotiations. President Tinubu hailed the “relief” via Onanuga, praising coordinated efforts.

Atiku’s salvo his latest in a series blasting Tinubu’s security record follows his November 21 call for a state of emergency after the Niger abduction. It echoes Femi Fani-Kayode’s “genocide” warnings amid a week of over 200 abductions.

Presidency sources dismissed it as “opposition grandstanding,” but rights groups like Amnesty International backed Atiku: “Celebrating releases while kidnappers roam free emboldens terror.”

As banditry escalates 312 students kidnapped in Kuriga, Kaduna, earlier this year Nigerians demand Arrests, not applause.
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