A chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Jonathan Vatsa, has challenged the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, to tour the country by road to prove that Nigeria is safer under President Muhammad Buhari as he claimed.

Vatsa, a former Commissioner for Information and Culture in Niger State, told newsmen in Minna that the security situation facing the nation has continued to deteriorate on a daily basis with no end in sight.

Asking Lai Mohammed to withdraw the statement credited to him, he said, “when you sit down in Abuja and be issuing statements just to protect your job, posterity will not forgive you. I challenge Mr Minister to tour the country by road, particularly Niger and Kaduna states let us see if the country is safer in the hand of Buhari or not. That is the only way we draw conclusions”.

The former Publicity Secretary of APC in Niger State argued that the country is currently going through the worst security situation since independence.

Also, reacting to the terrorists’ attack on Abuja-Kaduna bound train that left many killed and kidnapped as well as the series of attacks on communities across Niger State within the last six months by the gunmen, he insisted that whether the government admits it or not, it has failed Nigerians in all aspects of human endeavour.

” I wonder why President Buhari has refused to declare these gunmen, terrorists when their activities are even worst than Terrorism, especially now that they are beginning to use explosive devices, targeting national assets like the train and rail lines.

“Never in the history of Nigeria had blood flowed the way it is flowing now with innocent people being slaughtered and lives cut short every day without protection.

“Yet someone is there taking the people for granted with his unguarded comments that the country is safer in the midst of this bloodbath,” Vatsa maintained.

He further stated that with the current security situation in Niger State of which eight out of the 25 local governments are under siege of terrorists, “the 2023 election will be a mirage, if at all INEC decided to go ahead with the elections, such exercise can never be credible”.