They Are Not Asking for Rice’ – Atiku Blasts Tinubu Over Oyo Kidnap Response

Presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Atiku Abubakar, has described the reported dispatch of government officials with bags of rice and other palliatives to the families of Oyo kidnap victims as cruel, morally bankrupt, and an open confession of failure.

This was contained in a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu.

Any government that cannot protect school children has failed one of the most basic tests of leadership,” he warned.

Atiku called on President Bola Tinubu to immediately deploy all security and intelligence agencies to ensure the unconditional release of the schoolchildren and their teachers.

“The cruelty of such a response is hard to understand. Parents whose children have been ripped from their arms are not asking for rice. Mothers who don’t know if their children are hungry, sick, traumatised or even alive are not asking for palliatives.

“Dads who wake up every morning praying for a phone call to tell them their kids are safe at home aren’t looking for handouts. “What these families need is something to be done.” They need leadership. “What they need is a government that can save their children and bring the criminals responsible to justice.

“The abduction is another tragic reminder that under the Tinubu administration, insecurity has become a way of life and no longer an emergency, the former Vice President said.

What an indictment of this government that while criminals operate with impunity and impudence, innocent school kids are abducted from their classrooms and the official response is rice distribution. This is no governance. This is a failure of accountability. “It is a sad admission of failure by an administration that is becoming more and more overwhelmed by the very responsibilities it promised to undertake,” added Atiku.

He warned that normalising insecurity had pushed Nigeria to a dangerous reality where citizens lived in constant fear, noting that many Nigerian parents now budget for ransom as they budget for school fees.

“There must be consequences for those preying on innocent Nigerians. “Anything less than that will only embolden other criminal gangs and put more communities at risk,” warned Atiku.