Thumbs down to Jonathan for not visiting hot spots

“At a time like this when we are not sure who among the soldiers and Boko Haram members are our friends, it would be a big morale booster if we see the president, but he doesn’t appear to have recognized the need to visit Borno State,” a resident of bomb-scared Maiduguri, Modu Bukar, told Sunday […]

“At a time like this when we are not sure who among the soldiers and Boko Haram members are our friends, it would be a big morale booster if we see the president, but he doesn’t appear to have recognized the need to visit Borno State,” a resident of bomb-scared Maiduguri, Modu Bukar, told Sunday Trust during the weekend.

Bukar, a trader who owns a shop in the metropolis’ Baga market, added, “It is wrong for the president not to have visited Maiduguri. He should have come to see the atrocities his soldiers have been doing to us. The soldiers have compounded the problem. They should leave.”

Maiduguri is the breeding ground of the much feared Boko Haram, a fundamentalist group addressed by the members as Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad, which means in Arabic, “People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet’s Teachings and Jihad,” but dubbed Boko Haram by the residents of Maiduguri who have suffered most from the activities of the group.

Boko Haram’s violent activities climaxed two years ago when security agents killed its leader, Mohammed Yusuf, in controversial circumstances and heightened on January 28, 2011 when suspected members killed a gubernatorial candidate, Modu Fannami Gubio, along with his brother and four police officers. Incidence of violence attributed to the group escalated in April and, failing alternative ways to curb the violence, the federal government deployed a special joint taskforce of the military and the police last month. But the troops have been blamed for excesses which the authorities confirmed last week, even if not exactly meaning to do so, when it announced that it had identified five soldiers for trial over indiscriminate killing of civilians in Maiduguri.

Speaking in the manner of Bukar Modu, a newspaper vendor, Emeka Sunday, feels that Goodluck Jonathan erred by not visiting to calm residents of the much traumatised city. In Emeka’s words, “the president has done badly by not visiting this place. His coming would at least, have made us believe that our president is with us in these trying times. The presence of the troops on the streets of Maiduguri is fair but they should do their work with human feelings and not give us the impression that we are all part of the problem.”

THE residents NEED THE PERSONAL TOUCH OF A VISIT

Another Maiduguri resident, AbdulRahaman Tijani, a civil servant, told Sunday Trust that the president’s presence would have given him the personal feel of the Boko Haram crisis. Tijani said, “the president should have come to Maiduguri to see for himself, the level of insecurity in the state. If the president comes, he would have firsthand information from the residents and see the atrocities committed by the soldiers. His coming may also have allayed residents’ fears and given them a higher sense of security.”

A human rights activist, Barrister Kaka Shehu, feels, however, that Jonathan is not strictly bound to visit Maiduguri: “The president is the Commander-in-Chief but the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Air Marshal Oluseye Petinrin, came. It does not matter whether or not the president comes because even if he comes, it is the CDS who will brief him based on what the CDS himself may have gathered from the commander of the JTF.”

Speaking on the same note, a student, Peter Emmanuel says Goodluck Jonathan’s appearance might not have made much difference. He told Sunday Trust, “what is needed is for the security forces to do their work diligently so that the state can return to what it is – a Home of Peace.”

Borno, a state created in 1976 from the split of the older North-Eastern state and whch contained the present Yobe State until 1991, has ‘Home of Peace’ as its motto.

The fight for or against President Goodluck Jonathan is not just about Maiduguri and the rest of Borno State and the Boko Haram debacle. He is seen by many as generally not being quick to respond to emergencies by visiting people, mingling with them and giving firsthand, such assurance of support as can only come from a president.

Instances are given of the massive flooding of July 10 in Lagos and how he did not turn up till July 19 when he flew there to receive British Prime Minister David Cameron and used the opportunity, so some believe, to see some of the destruction the flooding did to Lagos. He is criticized for not visiting any state of the North to assess the April post-election violence as the chief security officer of the nation and of ‘ignoring’ Zamfara State during the lead poisoning that caused hundreds of deaths in parts of the state last year.

‘JONATHAN IS SIMPLY CONFORMING TO TYPE’

Reacting to the ‘nonchalant attitude’ of the president towards victims of crises in the country, president of the Civil Rights Congress, Malam Shehu Sani, said most Nigerian leaders do not have the culture and conscience of sympathizing with the masses.

“It’s not only President Jonathan who does not pay sympathy visit to victims of crisis or disaster. Late President Umaru Yar’adua did not have the time to visit Jos inspite of all that happened. Nigerian leaders are more concerned about themselves. They only know the pains of death when it touches them directly or their political or business partners.”

Sunday Trust recalls that Jonathan has made an exception to this ‘rule’. He visited Jos in January last year while he was the vice president but holding forth for the late President Umaru Yar’adua while Yar’adua was out of the country on a medical trip.

According to Shehu Sani, when a Nigerian governor or minister or president loses a son or a wife or a friend, they will travel long distances to condole one another. He elaborated, “they will even want the masses to shed tears for them. If you see any deep concern in the heart of members of the ruling class, one of their own is involved. When an emir dies, a Nigerian president will pay a visit immediately. When a thousand people in an Emirate die of natural or man made disaster, the Nigerian leader sends a letter of condolence if at all.”

Comparing Nigerian leaders with their American counterparts, Shehu Sani said, “President Obama in May visited the victims of Joplin tornado. When congress woman, Gilford and other persons were shot by a deranged fellow, Obama was there. When flood ravaged Memphis, Obama was there. When oil spilled in the Gulf of Mexico and destroyed lives and livelihood, Obama paid the people a visit. Can a Nigerian president claim to be busier than the American president?”

Shehu Sani itemised yet more examples in other lands: “In Russia, two tragedies happened recently – bomb blasts in their airport and their metro station. In both cases, President Dimitry and Prime Minister Putin, visited the victims on the scenes and in hospitals. In the UK last year when a shooting in Cumbria left scores dead, David Cameron rushed to the scene. You can also recall when the Chinese leader, Hu Jintao, visited flood victims of his country in 2008. Look at how the government of Japan literarily relocated to the site of the earthquake affected areas. I can go on and on.’’

Sani said visiting people in times of misfortunes by leaders is a mark of responsiveness, adding, “when a leader visits, he gives courage and hope.”

Truly, this matter of what specific roles a president should play when nationals face difficult challenges has wide application. As in so many cases, the United States is a model of this. When George Bush failed to visit New Orleans after the Katrina devastation six years ago, he faced much anger from a section of the public.

The muck heaped on Bush ran along various lines. One critic said, “if it is not making him money, then he does not care.” Another asserted, “he’s a racist and he actually planned for Katrina to happen ahead of time.”  A third voice asked, “haven’t you heard Bush hates all black people?”

But, as in Goodluck Jonathan’s case, Bush had nationals who would not be heard dishing mud his way.  Some of such people reasoned: “Bush did not ignore New Orleans. He asked what help the state needed and they told him they would handle it and get back to him if they needed anything from him.”  “In all honesty, I don’t see how the executive branch of the federal government is responsible for a state level crisis.”

‘JONATHAN MAY NOT HAVE BEEN AS GUILTY AS CHARGED’

Commenting on Jonathan’s score card in responding to emergency situations with particular reference to the long-drawn Boko Haram violence in Borno State, the National Chairman of the African Liberation Party (ALP) and former presidential candidate of the party, Chief Emmanuel Osita Okereke, said he was sure President Goodluck Jonathan was in touch with Maiduguri.

He said, “the president would normally keep in touch through security reports from relevant security chiefs. In any case, Borno has a governor who is the chief security officer of the state and who, I’m sure, was also in communication with the president. All this means that the president is not strictly bound to be in Maiduguri in person.”

He added, with less emphasis, that the security situation might have made the president’s security chiefs advise him against a visit: “I’m not in a position to say if it happened, but the president’s men may have prevailed on him to keep off till his safety in the restive city could be guaranteed.”

On what he made of the president’s delayed visit to Lagos after the flood, Chief Okereke who spoke on phone incidentally from Lagos, said unless he was preoccupied with equally important assignments, Jonathan should have been in Lagos soon as the flood subsided.

He said, “the Lagos flooding was a natural disaster the aftermath of which had no security implications the like of that of Boko Haram in Maiduguri. He should have been in Lagos early enough to give Lagosians the perception that Abuja cared. But I don’t know. Maybe he had other matters needing equal attention, in which case, he had to let Lagos wait till the next appropriate time. That time may have been when he was in Lagos to recieve visiting British Prime Minister and made time to see some parts of the city that were most severely impacted by the flood.”

‘THE PRESIDENT CARES’

Dr Rueben Abati, Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, told Sunday Trust on phone that Jonathan is a caring president who is ever in touch with every part of the country through relevant officials in all situations requiring his attention.

He said, “the president couldn’t be in Lagos immediately after the flood but he did go eventually. He toured affected areas extensively to show the people how he cared for them. Before then, he had kept in touch with the governor (Babtunde Fashola) who admitted that the president showed much concern. Fashola said specifically that the president’s response to the flood which occurred the previous week had been heart-warming because the president had frequently expressed sympathy and had sent federal officials, including a minister and the permanent secretary of the Ecological Fund to evaluate the effects of the flood. The president himself disclosed that he had directed the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), to provide relief for affected persons.”

On the Boko Haram crisis and the president not having visited Maiduguri, Abati said, “as for Borno, the service chiefs have been there and the president has been working with Governor Shetima at efforts to subdue the Boko Haram unrest. Even if he goes to Maiduguri, it is the same officials of government and security agencies he has been liaising with whom he will meet with. I’m not ruling out the possibility that he would go there in no long time but he is very much in touch with the people already.”