Amid Nigeria’s deepening security crisis, President Tinubu has claimed that his adversaries are exploiting the country’s instability in a bid to force him out of office, an effort he notes will ultimately fail.
Speaking with characteristic bluntness, Mr Tinubu framed the surge in insecurity not just as a national challenge but as a politically weaponised tool.
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“My enemies want to use insecurity in the country to get rid of me,” he said in a short video. “But I’m a stubborn politician who refuses to go, and I will campaign for my second term.”
It is not clear whether the video was recorded recently and the forum he spoke.
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The president’s remarks come at a time Nigeria is grappling with overlapping security threats across multiple regions.
In the North-east, the long-running insurgency by Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) continues to test military resilience. In the North-west and parts of the North-central, a new pattern of Boko Haram insurgency, banditry, mass abductions, and rural violence have intensified, displacing communities and straining local economies.
Meanwhile, separatist tensions and sporadic violence persist in the South-east, while oil theft, pipeline vandalism and seaway abductions remain entrenched challenges in the South-south region.
In the midst of all these, Mr Tinubu chose to politicise Nigeria’s multidimensional insecurity, reflecting a recurring pattern in which violence and instability become entangled with electoral calculations and elite rivalries.
Since assuming office in 2023, his administration has faced mounting criticism over its handling of security, with opposition figures and civil society groups questioning both strategy and outcomes.
Mr Tinubu has repeatedly vowed to curtail insecurity threatening Nigeria’s stability by reforming the country’s security architecture.
“Security shall be the top priority of our administration because neither prosperity nor justice can prevail amidst insecurity and violence,” Mr Tinubu said in his inaugural speech on 29 May 2023. “We shall invest more in our security personnel, and this means more than an increase in number. We shall provide better training, equipment, pay, and firepower.”
But domestic security strain has, in recent months, taken on an external dimension, one that continues to generate quiet but significant debate within policy and diplomatic circles.
Heightened international concern over Nigeria’s security situation, particularly around extremist violence, culminated in unprecedented foreign involvement. The United States, after months of pressure and escalating rhetoric over alleged Christian genocide, conducted targeted strikes on suspected terrorists’ positions in the North-west.
While the Tinubu administration presented the development as a counterterrorism collaboration, it raised difficult questions about how Nigeria arrived at that point. Critics have pointed to gaps in strategy, intelligence coordination, and diplomatic signalling that may have created room for external intervention which they argue could downgrade Nigeria’s sovereignty.
The government’s response to the episode was notably cautious. Rather than escalate tensions, officials pursued what analysts have described as a careful and fragile diplomatic approach seeking to preserve strategic ties, while managing domestic violence in a way that could further worsen it.
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A calculated strategy?
By casting himself as a target of orchestrated destabilisation, Mr Tinubu appears to be rallying his political base while signaling resilience ahead of the next electoral cycle.
His declaration of intent to seek a second term, though not unexpected, adds a sharper edge to Nigeria’s already charged political atmosphere.
However, his comment also raises questions about how security narratives will shape campaign rhetoric, voter sentiment and alliances in the coming months.
