The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has accused President Bola Tinubu of mismanaging the relationship previously existing among the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) nations.
Bolaji Abdullahi, the national publicity secretary for the ADC said the president upon assuming office as Nigeria’s number one man failed to take appropriate steps towards building strong relations among the West African countries.
Speaking as a guest on Channels Television’s Politics Today, Abdullahi said the fight against terrorism could have gained ground if Nigeria had positioned itself as the Giant of Africa that it should be.
He said, “Look at the four other countries, these are ECOWAS countries, these were countries that used to work together to fight terrorism. Now what happened, President Bola Tinubu came and he mismanaged the relationship.
“And Mali left ECOWAS, Burkina Faso left, Niger left, now what used to be collaboration to fight terrorism in the Sahel became all man for himself and terrorism prospered,” Abdullahi said.
Reacting to the recent Global Terrorism Index report, Abdullahi stated that the foundation for fighting terrorism in Nigeria must be drawn from the country’s ability to build relationships within its neighbourhood.
“Because it is a fire hose philosophy, if your neighbour’s house is on fire, you have to bring out your fire hose of course the fire could spread to you if you don’t.
“Let me take another country, Chad, which is Nigeria’s immediate neighbour. Chad is number 26, what is Chad doing; Cameroon is like number 16, what is Cameroon doing?
“The priority of Nigeria should be the security of Nigeria. The ability of Nigeria to play any leadership role within the West African region depends on Nigeria’s ability to protect and defend its own people.
“As long as Nigeria is not able to protect and defend its own people, it cannot lay any claim to leadership,” Abdullahi added.
