Ex-Governor Tanko Al-Makura of Nasarawa says President Muhammadu Buhari has managed Nigeria’s security crisis well since assuming office in 2015 because Boko Haram did not bomb Lagos, Abuja and Kano. 

“Bomb were being detonated in Lagos, in Kano, in Abuja and everywhere. Look at the journey from then to now. Are we having those bombings? Is it by chance or by effort?” stated the former governor. “This administration has done creditably well to ensure that our promises are delivered.”

Mr Al-Makura, who is contesting to be All Progressives Congress chairman, said this on Channels TV on Sunday, when asked if his party had delivered on promises made to Nigerians on tackling insecurity in the country. 

“It is not good isolating issues. Look at what Boko Haram has made Nigeria before we came. Borno, Yobe, Adamawa, were all under the control of Boko Haram,” he added. “In fact, it got to a point where certain local governments were for months under the administration of Boko Haram.” 

Before 2015, Mr Buhari had blamed heightened insecurity on 16 years of misrule of the Peoples Democratic Party, promising to tackle insecurity when elected. 

However, since Mr Buhari’s regime took over the reins of power in 2015, insecurity has deteriorated as Boko Haram terrorists, bandits and unknown gunmen continue to wreak havoc, killing and kidnapping innocent Nigerians for ransom.

Lamenting the spate of insecurity in the country in October 2021, Mr Buhari’s media aide Femi Adesina admitted that “life has descended into the Hobbesian state of nature; nasty, brutish and short” in the last 18 months under his principal’s control.

“We have, indeed, passed through the most challenging of times in the past 18 months: security-wise, economically, socio-politically, and in many other ways,” Mr Adesina admitted.