By: Odeh Favour Adiya
Human rights activist and presidential candidate of the African Action Congress
(AAC) for the 2027 general elections, Omoyele Sowore, has hit out at the Federal Government over its handling of the country’s worsening security crisis, stating that the nation has lost its direction.
Speaking during a live appearance on an Arise News program, the fiery politician lamented the state of affairs under the ruling party. “You know I think Nigeria has reached a level of confusion that we don’t even know what we are doing again,” Sowore stated.
The AAC candidate strongly questioned the rationale behind deploying forest guards to tackle hardcore terrorism, arguing that the move is a clear admission that the nation’s regular security forces have abandoned their duties.
According to him, forest guards are legally meant to protect wildlife, not fight insurgents.
“Forest guards are actually not people who are supposed to protect the country, it’s the Nigerian police that has the internal duty to protect. Forest guards are supposed to be protecting animals and wildlife, so except you are saying that Nigeria has become totally a jungle that the police can no longer enter our forest, the army can no longer enter the forest so you go and put the forest guard. Maybe it’s because we killed all of their animals so we need forest guards to kill wild people, so we don’t know what we are doing,” he said.
Taking a swipe at the leadership of the nation’s security agencies, Sowore declared that if he were given the mandate to serve as the Commander-in-Chief, there would be no room for excuses or buck-passing from top security chiefs.
“If I were the commander in chief of the armed forces it is one of the things I will do. If you are the IG of police and you cannot rescue 8 kids and their teachers, you are gone. I’m not going to look for forest guards. Of course I will have forest guards to protect wildlife because I’m an environmentalist, I don’t want trees to be cut down, you know I don’t want the ecosystem to be destabilized, but it is not the job of the forest guards,” the presidential hopeful asserted.
He further warned that the government’s approach to security remains deeply flawed, describing the strategy as a chaotic, stop-gap reaction that avoids dealing with real law enforcement.
“When we get confused at this level, we are going to say, ‘well, next let’s arm the road safety people so that they can help us protect, you know, capture terrorists on the highway.’ Then when that fails they say, ‘well, let’s bring in the vigilante,’ which is what we have been doing for a long time. You know the problem with Nigeria is that anytime our leaders have no solution to problems, they throw more problems at the few solutions we have,” Sowore said.
He argued that true security can only be achieved by leaders who possess the capacity to think through the nation’s security architecture and implement actionable blueprints.
Proposing his own roadmap for peace, the candidate stated that Nigeria must aggressively tackle the foundational and external issues fueling the crisis.
“Few solutions come from people who can think through this security architecture that is needed to protect Nigerians, people like me. I have always said that Nigeria needs what we call flash… to deal with insecurity. One is to deal with foundational issues: illegal mining, terrorism that has come from outside,” he explained.
In a parting shot aimed directly at the ruling party, Sowore challenged the All Progressives Congress (APC) to take responsibility for cross-border security and track down the foreign elements he alleges were brought into the country during past election cycles.
“Ask APC to find those people they brought in to help them rig election in 2015 so we can return them back to where they came from. You know let’s deal with weaponries that are coming into the country through Libya, you know let’s deal with religious fanatics,” Sowore concluded.
The Arise News interview comes on the heels of mounting pressure on the federal government to secure the release of students and citizens currently held in various kidnapper camps across the country.
Sowore, who recently led grassroots demonstrations over the security situation, maintained that his party would continue to hold the administration accountable until the safety of all Nigerians can be guaranteed.
