The Senior Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to President Muhammadu Buhari, Mr Femi Adesina, has urged Nigerians to continue to exercise patience with the Federal Government especially with regards to issues of insecurity in the country.
The President’s media aide made the appeal during an appearance on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics when asked how much longer Nigerians should wait till the issue of insecurity is resolved.
According to him, security is not something that a timeline can be put on, rather it is an ongoing issue that needs to constantly be reviewed.
“Patience must be elastic, it’s not something that you get to a point and say patience has run out. Patience must be a continuous thing,” he said.
Adesina continued: “There are certain things in which you don’t have control of all the variables. If you don’t have all the variables, you don’t then begin to give timelines. And security is not one of those things that you will give a timeline to say by this time to this time, we will achieve this.
“All over the world, security is a continuous thing and even the most advanced countries, are still working at it”.
President Muhammadu Buhari had hinged his 2015 election on three major promises – fighting security, anti-corruption, and economic development.
The same promise was reiterated in 2019, with security still said to be a priority of his administration.
But despite this promise, the security situation in the country, especially in the north, appears to continue to deteriorate.
Last week, hundreds of schoolboys were abducted from the Government Science Secondary School in Kankara, Katsina State.
Although the boys have now been recovered, there have been questions around the circumstances of their release in relation to a similar situation in Chibok and Dapchi where schoolgirls – many of whom are still missing, were also kidnapped in 2014 and 2018 respectively.
Since the kidnap and rescue of the Kankara schoolboys, other incidents of kidapping and banditry have continued to occur.
But Mr Adesina insists that “security remains a work in progress”.
According to him, there was once a time in the country when cases of bombings, kidnappings and other forms of insecurity occurred nearly on a daily basis and he believes that although work still needs to be done, there has been a huge improvement.
“Let’s be thankful for small mercies,” he urged Nigerians, adding that “there are challenges, but that is not the constant”.
