The Minority Leader of the Senate Chamber of the National Assembly, Enyinnaya Abaribe, has disagreed with the notion that the current security situation was worse in the previous administration of President Goodluck Jonathan.

Speaking with Radio Now on Tuesday, Abaribe said those saddled with the responsibility of protecting Nigerians had “abdicated” their responsibility.

“I don’t agree with that. In fact, it is the greatest lie anybody can tell. Under the PDP, you can could drive from here to Kano; I was doing it. Under the PDP, you can could drive from here to Kaduna anytime of the day. Now, under the APC, even Army Generals now have to struggle to enter the train to go to Kaduna because that’s the only safest way of going,” Abaribe said.

“At that time under the PDP, we had just the insurgency only in the Northeast. Under the APC, they have exported it all over the country and you now turn around and say there was bombing. Will it not have been better to have one or two bombs than to have everywhere you can’t move.

“The point is even at that time when those things were happening, the APC used it and said once we come into power these things will not happen again… It was never as bad as it is today. Boko Haram can put their flag up in a place in Niger State two hours away from Abuja, anybody who hears that will know that this is colossal failure of this government and there’s no way you can compare with the Jonathan period.”

He also said that President Muhammadu Buhari had not taken charge of the security problems to instill confidence in the citizens.

On the spate of attacks on security operatives and government facilities in the Southeast by ‘unknown gunmen’, Abaribe denied that Igbo people were the perpetrators.  

“The psychology of the Igbo man is to build and not to destroy; we don’t do that… We challenge this government to do appropriate investigation… They are just looking for whom to blame,” he said.