Malik Ado-Ibrahim, the 2023 Young Progressives Party (YPP) presidential candidate, has lauded President Bola Tinubu’s decision to deploy Nigerian troops to the Benin Republic to thwart the recent coup attempt, describing the move as a “very wise and clever, well-designed political statement.”

Speaking on Channels Television’s Politics Today, the security consultant argued that the military intervention was primarily aimed at protecting Nigeria’s critical economic interests and reinforcing regional stability.

Ado-Ibrahim framed the intervention not merely as a regional political statement but as a necessary act of national economic defense, stating that Benin’s geographical proximity to Nigeria’s commercial nerve center made the action vital.

“Lagos needed protection, and the rights given to him under ECOWAS allowed him to make that decision quickly,” he said.

He emphasized that the stability of Benin directly impacts the Nigerian economy.

He said: “Benin sits close to the centre of Nigeria’s economy, next to Lagos. We must ensure that area is protected, and many have forgotten how close we came to destroying Lagos’s economic lifeline.”

The analyst confirmed that the intervention was within regional protocols, citing ...-civil war concept of the “country-centric circle,” where protecting neighboring democracies is essential for Nigeria’s own security.

Despite praising the Benin intervention, Ado-Ibrahim raised significant concerns about Nigeria’s internal security capabilities, identifying weak intelligence capacity as the country’s biggest challenge.

He stressed that Nigeria has capable soldiers and air superiority over its internal enemies, but is hampered by a lack of basic intelligence infrastructure.

“Our problem is not troop motivation… We are lacking simple things needed to defeat these issues on the ground. Most of it lies in intelligence gathering, and the lack of it limits our ability to act as swiftly as we did in Benin over the weekend,” he argued.

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