The Alliance of Sahel States (AES) has criticised President Bola Tinubu for his comment, attributing Nigeria’s growing security crisis in part to insecurity in neighbouring states.
The AES — made of Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso — considered Mr Tinubu’s remark “simplistic,” “hasty”, and trivialised the states’ efforts to address terrorist operations in the Sahel.
Burkina Faso’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Karamoko Traore, disclosed the AES’s stance on Thursday during a meeting with the Chargé d’Affaires of the Nigerian embassy in Burkina Faso.
President Tinubu made his comment last week while discussing the military operation that led to the rescue of pupils and teachers kidnapped in Oyo State. He linked the growing insecurity in the country and the resurgence of kidnapping to the security situation of its neighbours in the Sahel.
“Some of them (the terrorists) are not Nigerian. You see, the problem of insecurity in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger only exacerbates our difficulties,” he said.
