The Labour Party (LP) has issued a scathing rebuke of President Bola Tinubu’s handling of the country’s worsening insecurity, urging him to either fulfill his constitutional duty of protecting Nigerians’ lives and property or step aside from office.
In a statement on Thursday, the Senator Nenadi Usman–led Interim National Working Committee of the party, through its Interim National Publicity Secretary, Tony Akeni, accused both the President and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) of failing in the government’s most basic responsibility of securing the lives and properties of the masses.
“The principal function of government is the protection of lives and property. If President Tinubu cannot deliver this, he should sack Nuhu Ribadu, reconfigure the armed services, step up his security governance or do Nigerians a patriotic favour by sacking himself,” Akeni declared at a press briefing in Abuja.
The LP noted that despite massive defence allocations—over ₦6.5 trillion under Tinubu’s administration and $9.9 billion during former President Muhammadu Buhari’s tenure—the security situation has only deteriorated.
Akeni cited grim statistics, pointing out that between 2006 and 2021, 50,252 Nigerians were killed in 2,288 terrorist attacks, while another 51,425 died from kidnappings, robberies, rapes, police brutality, extra-judicial killings, and other violent crimes. Together, he said, this amounted to 101,677 violent deaths, an average of 57 per day.
He described as paradoxical the escalation of insecurity despite ballooning security budgets.
Defence spending rose from $2.4 billion in 2020 to $4.5 billion, and in 2025 Tinubu increased it to a record ₦6.57 trillion.
The Nigeria Police budget also climbed from ₦783 billion in 2022 to ₦969.6 billion in 2024.
“Yet killings and abductions continue unabated, as seen in last Tuesday’s mosque massacre in Katsina and similar bloodshed in Plateau, Benue, and other states,” Akeni said.
The party accused successive APC and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) administrations of diverting defence funds into private pockets, pointing to the proliferation of luxury estates, plazas, and overseas properties allegedly linked to public officials.
“The death toll in Nigeria today rivals or even exceeds that of countries in full-scale war,” Akeni lamented.
The Labour Party extended condolences to the families of victims of the Katsina mosque massacre and the Malumfashi mass abduction, where 30 worshippers were gunned down during morning prayers and more than 20 others burnt alive in their homes.
