Former Vice President and presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress in the 2027 election, Atiku Abubakar, on Thursday, critiqued the President Bola Tinubu administration’s handling of insecurity, arguing that while terrorists and bandits continuously adapt their tactics, the Nigerian government has failed to learn from past attacks and reform its counterterrorism strategy.
Atiku said the steady spread of terrorism, banditry and kidnapping beyond their traditional strongholds in northern Nigeria to other parts of the country was evidence that the nation’s security framework was failing to keep pace with evolving threats.
“The terrorists are learning from every attack. They study their successes and failures. They refine their tactics. They identify vulnerabilities. They adapt and strike again,” Atiku said in a statement issued by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Mr Phrank Shaibu.
According to him, “The question Nigerians must ask is simple: Why isn’t the government doing the same?”
The ADC chieftain warned that Nigeria could no longer afford what he described as a “business-as-usual” approach to terrorism, insisting that the country’s security architecture requires urgent restructuring to address increasingly sophisticated and geographically dispersed security threats.
According to him, a recurring pattern has emerged across the country in which attacks are followed by public outrage, official promises and investigative committees, only for fresh attacks to occur without meaningful lessons being applied.
“From Chibok to Oyo, from countless villages in the North-West to communities across the Middle Belt and beyond, the pattern has become tragically familiar. An attack occurs. The nation mourns. Promises are made. Committees are announced. Then another attack follows.
“A nation that refuses to learn from its tragedies is condemned to relive them,” he added.
Atiku argued that successive governments have relied heavily on centrally designed and often foreign-inspired counterterrorism models while paying insufficient attention to the experiences of communities directly affected by insurgency and violent extremism.
He urged the Federal Government to immediately undertake a comprehensive review of Nigeria’s National Counterterrorism Policy, saying future security responses must be rooted in lessons drawn from local realities.
“We went through the harrowing tragedy of the Chibok schoolgirls’ abduction. The pain of that national trauma remains etched permanently in our collective memory. Yet years later, schoolchildren and teachers are still being abducted in different parts of the country.
“We ought to have drawn critical lessons and early warning indicators from Chibok and other similar incidents to ensure that what recently happened in Oyo State and elsewhere never happened again,”.he added.
As part of his proposals, Atiku called for the establishment of a Terrorism Violence Peer Review Mechanism that would bring together affected communities, local leaders, security personnel and other stakeholders to systematically document lessons from previous attacks and integrate them into national security planning.
He said such a framework would strengthen grassroots intelligence gathering, improve early warning systems and enhance collaboration between communities and security agencies.
The former vice president also advocated the creation of specialised Counterterrorism Fusion Centres across the country’s six geopolitical zones to facilitate real-time intelligence sharing among the military, police, Department of State Services, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, immigration authorities, customs officials and local vigilante groups.
Beyond military operations, Atiku stressed the need for intelligence-led counterterrorism efforts, stronger border security and aggressive disruption of terrorist financing networks.
“The battle against terrorism cannot be won solely through military deployments,” he said.
“Every successful counterterrorism campaign around the world has relied heavily on intelligence superiority.”
He further argued that insecurity cannot be separated from governance challenges, noting that poverty, unemployment, illiteracy and state neglect create fertile ground for recruitment by extremist groups.
“We must recognise that terrorism is not merely a security challenge; it is also a governance challenge,” the statement added.
Atiku also proposed a National Victims and Survivors Support Framework to provide psychosocial support, educational assistance and economic recovery programmes for communities devastated by terrorist attacks.
The former vice president questioned the effectiveness of government spending on security, expressing concern that despite trillions of naira allocated to defence over the years, Nigerians continue to face worsening insecurity.
“What is particularly troubling is that despite trillions of naira budgeted for defence and security over the years, Nigerians are less secure today than they were a decade ago.
“This is not merely a failure of resources; it is a failure of strategy, coordination, accountability, and leadership,” he noted.
Atiku’s remarks come amid growing concerns over persistent attacks by insurgents, bandits and kidnappers across several parts of the country. While the Federal Government has repeatedly maintained that security agencies have recorded significant successes against criminal groups, recent incidents of abductions, attacks on rural communities and the expansion of violent crime into new areas have continued to fuel public debate over the effectiveness of Nigeria’s security strategy.
The Wazirin Adamawa urged President Bola Tinubu’s administration to move beyond rhetoric and urgently implement reforms capable of restoring public confidence in the country’s ability to protect lives and property.
“Nigerians deserve nothing less than a counterterrorism framework that is proactive, evidence-based, transparent, and firmly rooted in our domestic realities,” he said.