Arise Television anchor, Rufai Oseni, has criticised the Federal Government over its handling of the release of 24 schoolgirls abducted in Maga, Kebbi State, questioning why the administration opted to negotiate with bandits instead of deploying force to secure their freedom.
Oseni, in a viral video on Wednesday, expressed displeasure that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s government allegedly engaged in talks with the kidnappers, a move he argued contradicts the administration’s hardline stance on other security-related cases.
He noted that while the government “handed the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu, life imprisonment for inciting violence,” it is now negotiating with bandits responsible for abductions and terror attacks across communities.
“I am happy about the fact that the kidnapped people were released. Halluaah.
But what do they mean that they spoke with the kidnappers or bandits, and they released the people? Is it that you people did not arrest them? And you left them to go like that so that they will kidnap another person just as they have done? I shoulder a disbelief at what is happening in Nigeria.
“You negotiated with the criminals, bandits, and terrorists as what? a business partners? Should the government be negotiating in a case where it has superpowers? The same government has jailed Nmandi to life imprisonment for inciting violence.
”Still, the same people who kidnap and take people against their will, the government has the temerity to say we negotiate with them”, he said in the viral video X on Wednesday.