Labour Party Challenges Tinubu to Prioritize Security or Resign

The Interim National Working Committee of the Labour Party, led by Senator Nenadi Usman, has urged President Bola Tinubu to either fulfill his constitutional obligation of protecting lives and property or resign from his position.

The party accused the President and the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, of failing to address Nigeria’s worsening insecurity despite allocating trillions of naira and billions of dollars to defence spending in the last decade.

Addressing journalists in Abuja on Thursday, the Interim National Publicity Secretary of the party, Tony Akeni, stated that the current wave of insecurity was a cumulative failure of both the APC and the Peoples Democratic Party, which governed before 2015.

Akeni said, “The principal function of government is the security 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.”

Citing data between 2006 and 2021, Akeni said 50,252 Nigerians were killed in 2,288 terrorist attacks, while 51,425 others died from kidnappings, robberies, rapes, police brutality, extra-judicial killings, and other violent crimes, a combined total of 101,677 deaths, averaging 57 violent deaths daily.

The LP spokesperson described the steady rise in insecurity as paradoxical, given the ballooning security budgets.

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He said, “Between 2016 and 2022, the APC-led administration under Muhammadu Buhari spent $9.9 billion on security. The defence budget rose from $2.4 billion in 2020 to $4.5 billion. 

In 2025, Tinubu increased it to an all-time high of ₦6.57 trillion.

“In the same period, the Nigeria Police budget grew 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 incidents in Plateau, Benue, and other parts of the North.”

The Labour Party also accused successive governments of diverting defence allocations into private estates and luxury properties both in Nigeria and abroad.

Akeni added, “The death toll in Nigeria today rivals or exceeds that of countries in full-blown war.”

The party condoled with families of victims of the Katsina mosque massacre and the mass abduction in Malumfashi Local Government, where 30 worshippers were gunned down during morning prayers and over 20 others burnt alive in their homes.

It also sympathised with the Acting Governor of Katsina State, Alhaji Faruk Lawal Jobe, describing the killings as “another tragic reminder of the government’s failure to protect its citizens.”