Bayo Onanuga, spokesman for Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, said in a statement issued late Monday evening that Abubakar “has resigned from his position with immediate effect.”
“In a letter dated December 1, sent to President Bola Tinubu, Abubakar stated that he was resigning for health reasons,” Onanuga said, explaining that the president “accepted the resignation” and thanked him for his “services to the nation.”
He pointed out that Tinubu will “most likely” report to the Senate (the upper house of Parliament) at the end of this week as the successor to the 63-year-old former minister who has held the defense portfolio since August 2023.
In the midst of a national security emergency
“His resignation comes amid President Tinubu’s declaration of a national security emergency, the scope of which will be detailed in due course,” Onanuga added.
On November 26, Tinubu declared a “national security emergency” due to the wave of mass kidnappings that shook the country, the most populous in Africa (about 230 million people), in recent weeks.
The worst kidnapping occurred on November 21, when gunmen kidnapped 303 students and twelve teachers at St. Mary’s Catholic Secondary School in Niger State (central west), although fifty students later managed to escape.
Trump’s threats
The country’s security situation also came to the fore at the end of October, when US President Donald Trump designated Nigeria as a “Country of Particular Concern” — the State Department’s designation for religious freedom violations — after condemning the “slaughter” of Christians in Nigeria by “Islamist extremists.”
Trump even threatened military intervention, though the Nigerian government rejected his claims.
Some states in Nigeria, especially in the center and northwest of the country, suffer from constant attacks by “bandits,” a term used to describe criminal gangs who commit mass attacks and kidnappings for ransom, and whose members the authorities sometimes describe as “terrorists.”
Adding to this insecurity has been caused since 2009 by the activity of the jihadist group Boko Haram in the north-east of the country, and, as of 2016, also by the split of the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP).
In 2014, Boko Haram kidnapped 276 girls from a school in the village of Chibok in northeastern Nigeria, although many of them escaped their captors; According to the United Nations, at least 91 people are still returning to their homes after an event that caused an uproar inside and outside the country.
RML (Effie, AFP)