A presidential aide has courted controversy after branding Nigerians who questioned the swift rescue of former Power Minister Adebayo Adelabu’s family as terrorists, even as dozens of schoolchildren and teachers abducted in Oyo State remain in captivity.
Special Assistant to President Bola Tinubu on Social Media, Dada Olusegun, fired off a series of incendiary posts on X on Sunday, defending the Nigeria Police Force’s rapid recovery of Adelabu’s sister, Olaide Adegoke, and her twin sons, who were kidnapped on June 3 in Ibadan, Oyo State, and freed three days later on June 6.
The rescue drew scrutiny from a section of the public who contrasted the speed of the operation with the continued detention of Oyo schoolchildren and their teachers, who were abducted in Ogbomoso and have not yet been freed.
Olusegun, however, showed little patience for the comparison. “If you find yourself unhappy about the rescue of a woman and her children and jump on every conspiracy to try and downplay the efforts of law enforcement, just know you’re already a terrorist,” he wrote. “You may not be carrying weapons yet, but your mindset and theirs are essentially the same.”
He went further, accusing critics of exploiting the kidnapping for partisan purposes, describing them as devoid of empathy. “Like I said, these soulless individuals do not care about the kidnapped kids in Ogbomoso, and this particular cretin couldn’t contain his joy over Adelabu’s sister and kids being kidnapped,” he wrote, while quoting another user’s post. “For them, this is political cannon fodder that they can use to bulldoze their perpetual loser of a candidate into office.”
When critics pointed out that members of the current ruling party had themselves undermined rescue efforts and highlighted insecurity during their years in opposition, Olusegun was unequivocal in his rebuttal.
“Never in our time in opposition did we celebrate gleefully and shamelessly the misfortunes of those who don’t agree with us,” he said. “You lots are soulless, and your justification today for losing your humanity is that ‘some people may have done it 12 years ago.'”
The remarks have deepened tensions over what many Nigerians see as a disparity in the government’s urgency when high-profile individuals or their relatives are targeted, compared to the prolonged ordeal faced by ordinary citizens. The schoolchildren and their teachers from Ogbomoso remain missing as of the time of this report.
