Former governor of Anambra State, Peter Obi, has said the current state of insecurity in the country is the worst ever experienced in its history.
Obi, the vice-presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 2019 election, said there has been an upsurge in all forms of criminality in the country.
There have been several calls on President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration to act decisively or resign following spate of frequent attacks in various parts of Nigeria
Obi, while featuring on Channels Television program on Sunday, said current realities show the situation was not as bad as it was before President Buhari came to power in 2015.
The anchor asked him, “is this perhaps the worst situation we have seen in the country”, and he replied: “I have said so, yes, considering where we are today.”
“We (the opposition) are not the only ones protesting (the insecurity), even the churches are,” he said, adding: “So it has come to a critical stage where every Nigerian knows we are living in whatever you can describe it as.
“And if you go globally, from all indices of measurement of security, we have fallen below the scale.”
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Obi also said part of why Buhari was elected into office was that he said his administration “will solve all the security problems, but we’ve gotten worse”.
“In terrorism now, we are just after Afghanistan and Syria. We have never gone that low. We have upsurge in all forms of criminality, whether it is kidnapping, robberies and all sorts of crime. How do you tackle it? Economy,” he added.
“If you have 98 million people living under poverty, the consequent could be several millions who don’t know where the next meal will come from will be criminals.
“Changing the IG of police will not solve that problem. That is why we need to look at the economy. The economy of the country is turning south and collapsing and more people are being pushed into unemployment situations.”
