Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim, an All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential aspirant, has advised the federal government to treat the country’s current security challenges more seriously than the 2023 elections.
In a statement released on Wednesday from his media office in Abuja, Olawepo-Hashim said that the political leadership of the nation must prioritize urgent national security issues over the 2023 elections.
He added that “we must have a Nation first before election and our people must be alive and safe first to be able to vote.”
He averred that “Our Republic is under threat, our tested ways of life pluralism, democracy, State secularism, are about to be imperiled. The clock is ticking, time is running out, the forces of evil are set to take the capital.”
A report by Beacon Consulting, which was cited in part of the statement, said that banditry and terrorist acts had intensified throughout Nigeria during the previous seven months, killing 7,222 people and kidnapping 3,823.
He also said that the government shouldn’t undermine the warning expressed by Governor Zulum of Borno State, on the increasing number of ISWAP militants in the nation. He continued, given that all manner of armed groups are located within a two-hour drive of Abuja (the nation’s seat of power) from Niger and Kaduna.
