Some northern groups have described the planned campaign trip to the North-East as belated, ill-timed and insensitive.
They said for the President to go and campaign to a people who were traumatised by his lack of concern for their plight was, to say the least, “ immoral, irresponsible and callous.”
The spokesperson for the Northern Elders Forum, Prof. Ango Abdullahi, expressed shock at the reported plan by the President to embark on a campaign trip to the troubled region. He said it was left for the people of the area to let their guest know how they feel.
According to him, it beats the imagination that the President, who gives every excuse under the sun to stay away from the North-East, has suddenly developed courage because of his re-election bid.
Abdullahi said, “It will be immoral for the President to go to the North-East in the name of campaign when he has been unable to visit the people for the three years they have suffered from the wanton destruction of their lives and property by the Boko Haram sect.
“It is left for the people of the North-East to show him how they feel. If you recall, Jonathan was quoted as asking where Bama is.
“We have a President who does not know the geography of the country. Maybe his friend, former Governor of Borno State, Ali Sherriff, will show him the way.”
Second Republic federal lawmaker and a Kano State delegate to the just-concluded National Conference, Dr. Junaid Mohammed, said he had nothing but contempt for the President and his handlers, especially when it had to do with the issue of national security.
He said, “I never thought that we could have a President who is this insensitive, who is this irresponsible, who is this irredeemably shameless.
“It is now clear to me that politics and this political gamesmanship is the primary purpose of this guy’s life.
“Human life does not mean anything to him, since the advent of the Boko Haram insurgency, the massive killings and abductions of young Nigerians, he has not even genuinely commiserated with these people.
“What is available to him today in terms of security was available to him three years ago when the insurgency began to spiral out of control.”
Mohammed appealed to all men of goodwill, including foreign powers interested in the development of Nigeria to tell the President that the lives of Nigerians are worth much more than his political ambition.
The spokesperson for the All Progressives Congress, Alhaji Lai Muhammed, said that whether it is morally right or not for Jonathan to seek the support of the traumatised Chibok parents many months after he had failed to rescue their children from the terrorists’ den should be left for Nigerians to judge.
“We cannot always be the judge; we are going to allow Nigerians to be the judge in this case. Let Nigerians judge the issue,” he said.
The Secretary of the Borno Elders’ Forum, Bulama Gubio, doubted that the residents would warmly welcome Jonathan because the President had not visited the traumatised parents of Chibok girls since their children were abducted on April 14, 2014.
Gubio, however, said the President was welcome in the North-East because he is a Nigerian and not necessarily because he is the leader of the country.
He said, “Let him come, he is a Nigerian; he is welcome. If all he wants to do here is to come and campaign, let him come and do so, at least he is a Nigerian and he has the right.
“Those who will receive him, if there are, will receive him because he is the President. But really, we don’t see ourselves as Nigerians again. If there are people here who feel they are still Nigerians, they will receive him.”
On the security crisis in Borno State, Gubio said many youths were losing their lives daily to the Boko Haram insurgency as they were confronting the terrorists.
He said, “We are doing our best; we are praying to God. We don’t think of any President now because there is none who is doing anything for us now. Our youths are helping some of the military personnel here to fight the insurgents.
“Many of us have children in the military and in the vigilante group and they are ready to lay down their lives for us; they are doing the best that they can. We are losing many of them, we are not happy, but we have to keep fighting.”
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