The cleric defended the president at a Washington gala but warned that known terrorism sponsors walk free while the country bleeds.
RCCG General Overseer Pastor Enoch Adeboye backs Tinubu on Nigeria insecurity, urging military chiefs to end terrorism in 90 days or resign.
RCCG General Overseer Pastor Enoch Adeboye backs Tinubu on Nigeria insecurity, urging military chiefs to end terrorism in 90 days or resign.
Pastor Enoch Adeboye stood before a gala audience in Washington on the night of June 23 and did something few Nigerian clergymen dare: he publicly defended President Bola Tinubu on the country’s worsening insecurity crisis.
The US-Nigeria Faith Heroes Award Gala, organized by the Save Nigeria Group, gave Adeboye the platform. But the General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God used it to deliver something far sharper than a sermon.
“I don’t support those who are accusing the president of not doing enough,” Adeboye told the gathering. “When the commander-in-chief has given instructions to his subordinates, he has done his bit.”
He drew the comparison bluntly. “When my friend Trump gives instructions to go and bomb anywhere, he doesn’t leave the White House,” the cleric said, placing Tinubu’s conduct squarely within the convention of how commanders-in-chief are expected to operate.
Yet Adeboye did not leave it there. He pivoted without pause, calling the security situation a deteriorating emergency and disclosing he had already told Tinubu so directly, in a private conversation that also included First Lady Senator Oluremi Tinubu.
His advice to the president was specific: issue all military commanders, army, navy, and air force alike, a hard 90-day ultimatum. Eliminate terrorism or resign. That deadline, as gathered by Westtrybe, has not been formally adopted by the presidency.
The scale of the crisis Adeboye was referencing is documented. Violence across northern Nigeria killed more than 10,200 civilians in the 18 months between early 2023 and mid-2025, a toll that has only grown heavier since.
“Things have gone far, far worse than before the bomb came,” Adeboye warned, referring to the United States military strike against Islamic State-linked targets in northwest Nigeria on December 25, 2025.
And the spread southward alarmed him visibly. “The terrorism, kidnapping, and so on that were in the north are now even at my doorstep,” he said. “They have come all the way down to the south.”
Geopolitical research firm SBM Intelligence documented exactly that drift. Between July 2024 and June 2025, 2,938 people were kidnapped in the northwest region alone, representing over 60 percent of all reported incidents nationwide, with Zamfara State recording 1,203 abductions.
November 2025 produced a single-month horror. At least 402 people, mostly schoolchildren, were abducted across four north-central states, a figure that surpassed the 2014 kidnapping of the Chibok girls by Boko Haram in raw numbers.
Adeboye reserved particular urgency for those he described as the financial architects of the violence. “If those supplying arms, ammunition, and financial support are left untouched, the insecurity will persist,” he warned, naming businessmen and politicians specifically as suspects the government should pursue.
He also called for Washington and other allied nations to deepen their support for Nigeria’s counter-terrorism efforts. On May 15, 2026, US President Donald Trump had confirmed that American and Nigerian forces jointly eliminated ISIS’s second-in-command, Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, in a coordinated operation.
No spokesperson from Aso Rock had issued a formal response to Adeboye’s remarks by Tuesday, June 30, 2026. His voice carries rare weight in Nigerian public life. But his 90-day ultimatum signals he believes the directives issued so far have not been enough.
