Chieftain of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) Mr. Peter Obi, said last Wednesday’s abduction of Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) candidates in Benue State is an indictment of the failure of leadership and the collapse of security in the country.
Obi in a statement on X on Friday, regretted that young Nigerians who were striving for an education were being met with terror.
He said this is unacceptable, especially in a country where the share of tertiary graduates is already low (about 1%), which he said, is far below peers like Indonesia and South Africa (around 13 and 10% respectively).
“We cannot afford to lose even one more student to violence,” Obi stated.
He regretted that those entrusted with protecting these young students appear increasingly preoccupied with the next election, “projecting strength and power to rig elections, rather than deploying that same power and agencies to secure our roads, prevent these crimes, and rescue the abducted children who should not be in the hands of criminals but in examination halls.”
The former Labour Party presidential candidate noted that such abduction is no longer an isolated case but has become a pattern.
“It is a national crisis. And it demands urgent, decisive, and responsible action, not excuses, not silence, but leadership that matches the scale of the emergency this deserves,” Obi stated.
He added that a nation that abandons its youth abandons its future, but warned that such should not continue.
