Presidential visit: Should it be Yobe or Bauchi?

For the second time in his Presidency, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan will be visiting Bauchi State tomorrow. The major agenda is to attend a political rally being organised for him by the state government. For Jonathan, the campaign for his re-election in 2015 all but started since, though he claimed not to have made up his mind whether to contest or not and against the fact that INEC has repeatedly cautioned that electioneering for 2015 general elections at this point in time was against the law.

In the face of all the overwhelmingly murderous tragedies, it will be wise for the PDP to caution the President against a visit to Bauchi. The general insecurity and orgy of killings in the North-east states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa by Boko Haram insurgents deserve the President’s sympathy, attention and visit. Before the Bauchi visit,

Jonathan has since the beginning of this year been gallivanting from state to state, church to church obviously campaigning for his much vaunted ambition to re-contest the 2015 Presidential election. On February15, 2014, Jonathan paid a visit on the Emir of Kano on the excuse of “paying homage and see how the emir was doing.” The same day, he also visited Osun and Oyo states where he had “consultations” with key traditional rulers. On March 8, the President was in Niger State. Before this he hosted an elaborate event in the name of centenary anniversary at a time that over 50 young students of Federal Government Girls’ College, Bunu Yadi, Yobe State were ruthlessly murdered by Boko Haram.

Of the numerous flaws, Jonathan’s failure to visit Yobe state up to this very day after the students’ massacre is most irresponsible, reprehensible even. While the President is not in any way legally or constitutionally bound to undertake such visit, an impromptu or swift condolence visit by the President to the school, the parents of the victims and the state government would have relayed a message with far greater ramification than the best crafted statement often hastily issued by Presidential aides in the event of tragedies and disasters.

It seems that the minders of the President do not properly evaluate or comprehend the degree of damage, in both political and historical terms; that an oversight of this magnitude is capable of inflicting on the President, and indeed any leader worth his onion, who will be seen as cowardly and insensitive. While we do not want to align with oppositional rhetoric on the state of insecurity occasioned by the Boko Haram, Jonathan’s attitude leaves majority of Nigerians no option but to digest position views, especially in the context of their logic, as opportunistic as they may be.

For instance, it took the governors of opposition APC to visit Boko Haram heartland of Borno before the President visited the state after many months of bloodshed. Recently, Jonathan was in Katsina dancing at a PDP rally when many innocent souls were killed in that state. The President left the state without a visit to the affected area or any of the families.

The President should note that as Commander-in-Chief, he is several forces rolled into one – the chief security officer of the nation and the father and protector of all Nigerians – and therefore responsible for all us. We urge the President to put politics aside and visit states and families affected by violent killings. If the President, with all the intelligence and security agencies under him, is seen to lack the courage to visit at least family members of the murdered students in Yobe state, we wonder what message he is sending to ordinary Nigerians on the streets of Damaturu, Yobe state capital.