Retired Group Captain Sodeeq Shehu has given President Bola Tinubu’s government a poor rating on security, arguing that the situation has not changed much from the Buhari era.
Appearing on Politics Today, a Channels Television programme, on Thursday, the 4th of September, 2025, Shehu acknowledged that some progress has been made in coordination among the armed forces and other security outfits.
He pointed out better cooperation between the Army, Navy, Air Force, Police, DSS, and Civil Defence.
Despite these steps, he maintained that what truly matters is the level of violence ordinary Nigerians face. He explained that the real test of security lies in how many people are killed, injured, kidnapped, or caught in violent incidents, on this, he said the figures have barely shifted.
Shehu revealed that his personal rating of the Tinubu administration’s handling of security would be around 40 to 45 per cent. He emphasised that tackling insecurity is a long-term effort rather than a quick fix.
In his words: “When you say an appraisal, you have to look at where we came from and where we are now, and where we wish we would have been now compared to where we are now.
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“We can say, yes, there are slight improvements, like you said, in synergy that we are seeing, whether it is in the intelligence agencies or even within the military itself, the Army, Navy and Air Force, we see a lot, and again, in combination with the other security agencies, like the police, like the DSS, civil defense and so on and so forth.
“However, again, internationally, when you imagine how secure a country or how peaceful a country is, the indices that stare you in the face are the number of people killed, number of people injured, number of people kidnapped, or number of attacks that have happened.
Unfortunately, when you look at those numbers, we’ll see that there is not much difference from what we have before and what we have now. That is my own honest assessment.
“I did an op-ed where I said that as the Tinubu administration is concerned, I will score them about 40, 45 per cent on security. So like you said, it’s a marathon. It’s not a dash.
“So definitely, there are areas that can be improved, as we are seeing from the reports we are receiving.”