The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has condemned the killing of about 170 people in Kaiama Local Government Area of Kwara State, describing the attack as proof of a total collapse of security under the President Bola Tinubu–led Federal Government.

In a statement to Naija News on Friday signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Bolaji Abdullahi, the party said the massacre underscored what it called the government’s inability to protect Nigerians, despite repeated assurances and security declarations.

The ADC questioned the fate of the President’s declaration of a state of emergency on security and the widely publicised plan to recruit tens of thousands of police officers.

According to the party, the continued occurrence of mass killings across the country suggested that the measures were either ineffective or merely rhetorical.

Nigerians, the ADC said, were entitled to know whether the promised police recruits had been employed, trained and deployed, or whether the exercise had stalled quietly.

“If such measures were genuinely implemented, vulnerable rural communities like those in Kwara State should not be left completely exposed to mass slaughter,” the statement read.

The opposition party also raised concerns that heightened security activities witnessed last year – following comments by the President of the United States on Nigeria’s insecurity – were more about posturing for international approval than genuine efforts to end violence.

According to the ADC, the scale and frequency of killings since then showed that the government was not winning the war against terror.

“The net effect is that the Tinubu administration is not eliminating terror. It is merely redistributing it,” the party said.

The ADC noted that incidents ranging from mass abductions in Kaduna State to mass killings in Kwara State exposed deep structural weaknesses in Nigeria’s internal security architecture.

It identified intelligence gathering, border control, inter-agency collaboration and emergency response capacity as critical areas of failure.

The party said Nigeria’s security crisis had moved beyond the competence and capacity of the current administration, warning that killings had become routine while accountability had disappeared.

“Government response has been reduced to condolences and condemnations after each tragedy, forgetting that a government that cannot safeguard the lives of its people has failed in its most fundamental duty,” the statement said.

The ADC called on the Federal Government to come clean with Nigerians on the true state of national security, account for the police recruitment it announced, and clearly explain how it intends to halt the spread and relocation of terrorist groups across states.

“Nigeria cannot continue on this path of denial and inaction. Lives are not statistics, and governance is not public relations,” the party added.