Popular Nigerian journalist and Arise Television anchor, Rufai Oseni, has raised concerns over President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s government regarding the release of 24 schoolgirls abducted by bandits in Maga, Kebbi State, last week. In a now viral video on Wednesday, Oseni lamented that Tinubu’s government is negotiating with bandits to secure the release of the schoolgirls instead of using a kinetic approach. He said Tinubu’s government, which handed the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu, life imprisonment for inciting violence, is now negotiating with bandits for the release of kidnapped victims. “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. THENEWSCREDIT reports that 24 schoolgirls were released by bandits on Tuesday. Reacting president Tinubu said, “I am relieved that all 24 girls have been accounted for.” The manner of their release had continued to generate concerns among Nigerians. Earlier, Nigerian rapper and activist Folarin Falana, popularly known as Falz, faulted the rescue of 38 abducted members of the Christ Apostolic Church (CAC), Oke Isegun, Eruku, in the Ekiti Local Government Area of Kwara State, without the arrest of the kidnappers. However, a presidential spokesperson, Bayo Onanuga, in an interview on Arise TV, said, “The security personnel must act carefully to avoid harming citizens”, he explained as reasons bandits are not arrested.
