Afenifere in a statement late on Monday described Garba Shehu's claims that terrorists "deceived" the government into releasing his wife and children without releasing victims of the Abuja-Kaduna train as "very unfortunate and an admission of failure."
The Yoruba socio-political group, Afenifere, has said that the statement by Garba Shehu, the Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to President Muhammadu Buhari on “negotiating with terrorists” showed that the government has now admitted its failure.
Afenifere in a statement late on Monday described Garba Shehu's claims that terrorists "deceived" the government into releasing his wife and children without releasing victims of the Abuja-Kaduna train as "very unfortunate and an admission of failure."
The Afenifere National Publicity Secretary, Jare Ajayi, said, “Since the government is expected to possess superior power in virtually everything than any others in a country because the primary responsibilities of the government are the provision of security and welfare for the people and because the present administration has failed to provide either security or welfare for the people of Nigeria in recent times, one may not be wrong to state that President Buhari’s government greatly lost the confidence, trust and hope that were invested in it at inception. It is a pity.
“The manner insecurity issue is being handled is, unfortunately, lending credence to the views of those who are alleging that there could be a hidden agenda to these issues of banditry, kidnapping and terrorism, otherwise, the government would have been more decisive in the way it tackles the monster that is fast eroding the very essence of our being.”
Ajayi said that killings of students and others in the South-West as well as other parts of the country were very troubling and disturbing to "us in Afenifere and to us in Yorubaland as a whole as it is for all well-meaning Nigerians."
He expressed regret over the extent to which insecurity, terrorism, kidnapping, and the needless loss of lives had worsened in the country.
Afenifere urged the Buhari government to “urgently put a stop to the needless sacrifice of lives of innocent Nigerians by terrorists.”