President Bola Tinubu’s Special Adviser on Policy Communication, Daniel Bwala, has justified his principal’s call for former President Goodluck Jonathan’s resignation in 2014 over the abduction of Chibok schoolgirls.
Bwala, who spoke on Wednesday during an interview on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief, said Tinubu’s call at the time was “legitimate” given the severity of the incident and the government’s initial response.
“In the days of Jonathan, they didn’t have an idea of the solution. Why did I say that? They were in denial about the Chibok girls’ kidnapping. When President Tinubu, then Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, called for Jonathan’s resignation, it was a legitimate call,” he said.
The Chibok schoolgirls’ abduction in 2014 drew global outrage and became a defining moment in Nigeria’s security crisis.
Amid the recent spate of insecurity, critics have revisited Tinubu’s earlier position as mass abductions of schoolchildren continue under his administration.
Bwala argued that the security situation under Jonathan was markedly worse, claiming that terrorists had gained territorial control in some communities and were even collecting taxes from residents.
Defending the Tinubu administration’s current approach, the presidential aide reiterated that the Federal Government maintains a strict stance against negotiating with kidnappers.
“There was a time the federal government was negotiating (with terrorists), and I think that el-Rufai, the former Kaduna governor, once talked about a national policy at that time, when they said both states and the federal government can be in a situation where they will have to negotiate,” he said.
According to him, negotiations and ransom payments ultimately embolden criminal groups by providing financial resources for weapons and operations.
“But President Tinubu came with this zero tolerance on negotiation because it didn’t fit into terrorism financing,” Bwala said.
“You are constructively financing terrorism without knowing it. Instead of elements that are sponsoring them by giving them the money as ransom to collect the people, they also use the ransom money to buy more weapons.”
He added that the Tinubu administration “does not tolerate the idea of negotiation,” insisting that its priority remains dismantling the financial and operational capacity of terrorist groups.
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