The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has sounded a grave warning over what it describes as Nigeria’s dangerous slide into state failure, citing two chilling developments — the extortion of over N56 million from farmers in Zamfara State by armed groups, and the total abandonment of a village in Ifelodun Local Government, Kwara State, to bandits.
In a strongly worded statement signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, the party said these incidents are not isolated crimes but alarming indicators of a retreating state authority under President Bola Tinubu and the ruling APC.
“When criminals can tax citizens at gunpoint, it means the state has surrendered its monopoly of force,” the ADC warned, noting that the Zamfara farmers had to pay warlords before accessing their own farmlands, while an entire Kwara community fled for fear of attacks.
The opposition party recalled that in 2014, then-opposition leader Bola Tinubu had called on President Goodluck Jonathan to resign over Boko Haram’s occupation of parts of the North-East, yet today, “the security situation he campaigned against has multiplied exponentially under his direct watch.”
The ADC stressed that it was not asking President Tinubu to resign but to “drop whatever else preoccupies him” and urgently confront the bandit menace, especially in Zamfara where kidnapping and criminal taxation have reached what it called industrial scale.
The party also questioned why the President deemed the situation in Rivers State worthy of considering a state of emergency, but has remained silent on Zamfara’s open challenge to the Nigerian state.
“This is no longer just about insecurity,” the statement read. “It is about criminal elements contesting the right to govern a part of Nigeria. This demands immediate and decisive action.”
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