Nigeria’s insecurity rooted in 2015 plot against Jonathan – Datti Baba-Ahmed

The 2023 Labour Party Vice-Presidential candidate, Senator Datti Baba-Ahmed, has attributed Nigeria’s deepening insecurity to the desperation that led to the removal of former President Goodluck Jonathan in 2015.

Baba-Ahmed made the claim on Tuesday while appearing as a guest on Politics Today, a Channels Television programme.

Recalling his political experience, he said he had distanced himself from the late former President Muhammadu Buhari as far back as 2011 after the latter allegedly made an inflammatory remark during the campaign season.

“I contested with the late former President Muhammadu Buhari in 2011. But ever since he made a security threat comment, I refused to go out with him,” Baba-Ahmed said.

According to him, Buhari’s infamous statement, warning that elections could result in people being “soaked in blood,” heightened tensions in Kaduna, his home state, and triggered widespread violence.

“It didn’t matter if I lost the Senate seat, but I won it eventually. Buhari said, you [will all be] soaked in blood. Kaduna is my state. There was serious violence in Kaduna. Many houses were burnt,” he recounted.

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Baba-Ahmed further alleged that, in the build-up to the 2015 elections, political actors recruited individuals from neighbouring countries in their bid to unseat Jonathan, a move he said sowed the seeds of the insecurity still ravaging the country.

“They went and brought people from neighbouring countries in readiness to remove Jonathan,” he claimed.

The Labour Party chieftain’s remarks add to ongoing debates about the origins of Nigeria’s prolonged security crisis, which has spanned successive administrations and remains one of the country’s most pressing challenges.