If security has truly improved, try travel without escorts — APM tells Tinubu, minister

The Allied Peoples Movement (APM) has challenged President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the Minister of Defence, Gen. Christopher Musa (retd.), and other senior officials of the administration to travel by road without armed security escorts if the government’s claim of improved security is genuine.

The party made the challenge on Saturday in Abuja while reacting to Musa’s recent claim that the Federal Government had “defeated terrorists” and that kidnapping had been reduced to more of a “social ill” than a wider security concern.

The APM, through its National Publicity Secretary, Mr Abubakar Yusuf, accused the Tinubu administration of “living in denial” of the security realities confronting Nigerians, arguing that the situation on the ground contradicted the government’s claims.

“If the security situation has truly improved as the administration claims, the APM challenges the President, the Minister of Defence and other senior officials of the Tinubu Presidency to travel by road without armed security details as other Nigerians must do,” it said.

Musa, while speaking during a television interview earlier on Tuesday, had said the government had made significant progress in tackling terrorism and that the pattern of insecurity had shifted towards kidnapping.

“Frankly speaking, we have defeated terrorists because now, like I said, the attacks are not as rampant and it is now kidnapping.

“Like I said, kidnapping is a social ill where you now see wives kidnapping husbands and husbands kidnapping children”, he responded to a question.

The minister went on, “I can tell you there is improved security. Maybe if you noticed, you don’t hear so much of Boko Haram attacks, ISWAP attacks and all these things here and there, maybe one-off.

“Now, I say, the trajectory is this: from criminality to kidnapping to terrorism, insurgency; once you are able to hit them, it goes back downwards.

“So, we are now back into the stage of abductions and kidnappings because that is the easiest way for them to try and raise money.”

However, the APM said the minister’s assessment amounted to a “dangerous distortion of reality”, citing the Global Terrorism Index 2026, which it said ranked Nigeria as the fourth most insecure country in the world, compared with sixth position in the 2025 index.

Yusuf said it was unacceptable for a senior government official to claim that security had improved while Nigerians continued to face killings, abductions, displacement and other forms of violence.

“It is deeply disappointing that a minister of the Federal Republic could appear on national television to make such claims at a time when millions of innocent Nigerians are being killed, kidnapped, displaced and terrorised in various parts of the country,” Yusuf stated.