The All Progressives Congress (APC) has again called on President Goodluck Jonathan to take time off his premature electioneering campaign to visit Yobe State to commiserate with the bereaved families of the innocent schoolchildren who were brutally murdered by terrorists last month.
It said far from being a mere formality, such a visit will provide great succour to the families of the victims, reassure them and other residents of the state that their government has not abandoned them to their fate, and also serve as a morale booster for our gallant troops who are battling the terrorists, against all odds.
”There is no other democracy in the world in which that number of schoolchildren will be killed and the head of government will carry on with business as usual. Since the killings, President Jonathan has made a national broadcast in which he mentioned the killings only as a footnote, instead of making it the central point of the broadcast.
”Since the killings, President Jonathan has been gallivanting across the country, surreptitiously kick-starting his electioneering campaign for 2015 under the guise of receiving some inconsequential political jobbers now wearing the tag of defectors. This junketing has taken the President everywhere, including Sokoto, Minna, Ilorin and Onitsha. But he has pointedly avoided Yobe. To put it mildly, the father of the nation has been practically dancing on the graves of those innocent souls. This is not the stuff of leadership and the President must make amends by visiting Yobe today,” APC said.
The party said President Jonathan should take a cue to what obtains in other lands, especially in the US after which Nigeria has modelled its democracy.
”In January 2014, US President Barack Obama flew to Tennessee, where he spoke at a high school where students were still reeling from the shooting death of just one of their classmates; In 2012, President Obama paid a similar visit to Newtown in Connecticut, where he met relatives of the 20 schoolchildren and 8 adults who were shot. These are examples worthy of emulation by President Jonathan,” it said.
Alhaji Lai Mohammed
