Peter Obi Blasts Tinubu Over ‘Hasty’ Recruitment of 1,000 Oyo Forest Guards; Says Ad-Hoc Manual Mirrors Failed Subsidy Policy

The presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), Peter Obi, has heavily criticized the Federal Government’s approach to the nation’s security crisis, describing the recent approval to deploy a thousand forest guards to Oyo State as a reactive, piecemeal measure that exposes a profound lack of a coherent national defensive blueprint.

The sharp political intervention materialized over the weekend through an intensive public statement released by the former Anambra State governor via his communication channels, under the heading “What Our Pervasive Insecurity Requires: A Holistic, Not Reactive Approach.” Obi’s public critique lands right in the middle of severe regional anxiety following the mid-May mass abductions of 46 primary and secondary schoolchildren and their teachers in the Oriire Local Government Area near Ogbomoso. While the central treasury moved to project a rapid response manual by authorizing an immediate recruitment drive for localized forest rangers, Obi insists the move is more about political optics than structural salvation.

Unzipping a scathing structural analogy, the NDC flagbearer compared the presidency’s sudden security activation to its highly controversial macro-economic experiments. He maintained that attempting to fix multi-layered security challenges through ad-hoc decrees is the exact same governance playbook that triggered the current economic hardship ripping through millions of households.

“In a hasty effort to be perceived as attentive and courageous, it is reported that President Bola Tinubu has approved the recruitment of about 1,000 forest guards for Oyo State,” Obi declared with absolute candor in his statement. “This is a further demonstration of poor leadership and attending to very serious governance and security issues with a reactive approach. It is the same reactive approach that led to the sudden removal of fuel subsidy and floating of the Naira that has caused irreparable damage to ordinary Nigerians and the economy. While recruiting more security personnel for Oyo State and the country is important, it must be executed in a far more organized and well-thought-out manner.”

The veteran politician raised a series of administrative and logistical queries regarding the scalability of the intervention. Pointing out that almost all 36 states of the federation are currently buckling under severe internal security fractures—singling out Plateau, Kwara, Kogi, Borno, Katsina, Niger, Imo, and Sokoto as holding alarming casualty baselines, Obi questioned the criteria behind the single-state clearance. He asked whether the presidency intends to approve a parallel recruitment manual across all states to yield a synchronized force of 37,000 forest guards, or if the distribution of state defensive shields is now entirely arbitrary.

Furthermore, Obi dropped an institutional warning regarding potential operational friction within the southwestern corridor itself. He questioned how the newly proposed federal forest guards would interface with the existing Western Nigeria Security Network, popularly known as the Amotekun Corps, which has spent years coordinating localized counter-banditry loops across the region’s porous borders.

“With the approval for Oyo, what will happen to the Amotekun Corps that is trying its best to secure South-West Nigeria?” Obi questioned. “Will they be disbanded or sidelined in Oyo State? The pervasive insecurity we currently have is directly related to the comprehensive failure of our ecosystem, particularly leadership. It is only a foundational failure in leadership that can lead to the death of over 10,000 innocent Nigerians since 2023, leaving our nation permanently ranked among the top-most terror-affected territories in the world.”

Concluding his brief, the opposition leader insisted that military surges and local guards alone cannot permanently secure the country’s borders.

Arguing for a wholesome, multi-dimensional ecosystem approach, Obi maintained that true national security cannot transit out of its current bottlenecks until the federal cabinet aggressively addresses the socioeconomic catalysts of crime. He urged the administration to shift its focus away from premature 2027 electoral calculations and channel state resources into massive agricultural modernization, industrialization, and direct job creation to prevent millions of exponentially growing youths from being recruited into the thriving deep-forest ransom economies.