Iliyasu Gadu
Ilgad2009@gmail.com
08035355706 (Texts only)
Reactions to President Bola Tinubu’s visit to Jos following the eruption of violence in the Angwan Rukuba part of the city on Palm Sunday are still on-going with many giving the president the thumbs down on the entire event.
From his body language to the address he gave and the arrangements for the visit, this was one of the greatest cock ups in a presidency strewn with embarrassing cock ups all along its three years so far in office.
If any doubts existed on this score, this was borne out by every other item on the programme of events pertaining to the visit.
First up, it appeared that President Tinubu was not in the frame to undertake the visit. Somebody or some people may have lobbied him intensely to do so if only for the optics and also for the fact that the Chairman of the ruling party Professor Yiltwada Nentawe hails from the state. It was thus not a solemn condolence visit as it should, but more of a politically convenient one to give the impression that the president really cared for the grieving people of plateau state.
Secondly, why would grieving relations of the victims of violence be compelled to be bussed over 40 kilometres from Angwan Rukuba where the violenced occurred to Yakubu Gowon Airport at Heipang in Barkin Ladi Local Government? Readers will appreciate the inconvenience of this arrangements for the relations of the victims if it is considered that this is a distance covering Jos North, Jos East, Jos South and Barkin Ladi, four local governments in all. The question to ask here is that was the visit arranged for the convenience of the President Tinubu or the victims of the Angwan Rukuba violence?
Thirdly, President Tinubu himself gave away the game when he told the assembled ranks of plateau grandees at the airport where the visit began and ended that he had only ten minutes to spare because the facility had no power to handle night flights.
Now the question to ask is for an airport that is under management of Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) an agency supervised by the President’s ‘’blue-eyed’’ Aviation Minister Festus Keyamo (SAN), who is to blame for this then? Surely the president must have been briefed about this very critical handicap of the Yakubu Gowon airport before he set out on the visit from Abuja. Why then did he decide to undertake the visit anyway knowing that there was not enough time to make the visit meaningful both for him and the victims rather the whistle stop one he did on his way to supposedly more salubrious event in Ogun state.
Does anyone need to compel president Tinubu against his personal wish and desire to visit Jos to commiserate with the people of the state on yet another orgy of blood-letting in the state? Was that not the obligation the president owed the people of Jos and Plateau state over this sad development in his position as president and commander in chief which he swore to do? Was the Angwan Rukuba violence by scale and magnitude and indeed the recurring violence in Plateau state as a whole not compelling enough on its own to merit a special visitation by President Tinubu for a mini-summit with the all stakeholders in the state to find solutions to the hydra-headed issues? Is Plateau just a mere politically convenient dot in President Tinubu’s 2027 elections calculations and that the people of plateau do not matter especially with the body blows repeatedly inflicted on them by unending circle of violence?
Although not a native of Plateau state, I count myself as a Jos boy through and through. My family moved to Jos in 1970 when the city was the capital of then Benue-Plateau state. I was 8 years old then and was raised there as with all my younger siblings who were born there and have been living there. Before the bye-pass that presently runs from British-American to the Junction that connects Farin Gada to the Jos-Bauchi road, Angwan Rukuba and the adjoining Rikkos and Gangare areas were our usual routes to Shere Hills and to the picturesque Lamingo dam where we used to enjoy picnics and a dip into clear blue lakes there.
I am of course pained by the rather cavalier manner with which President Tinubu handled the gilt-edged opportunity to show that Plateau lives matter given that the state has now become a metaphor for violence in great big bleeding batches.
Against this background, it must be said without equivocation that President Tinubu’s visit to Jos cannot be termed in real terms as a condolence visit to the victims of the Angwan Rukuba violence. The visit, such as it was, was devoid of the elements of sympathy, empathy, timing and convenience to the victims and their loved ones. The visit also did not show sufficient regard for the scores of top personalities of national and international repute like former military hero and Head of State General Gowon, Late Deputy Senate President NasirU Mantu etc, that hailed from this state. Indeed, President Tinubu’s visit was a back-handed smack to the likes of Senator David Jonah Jang and the APC Chairman Professor Nentawe who were present at the airport to endure what was clearly a humiliation of their standing as Plateau stakeholders. How can President Tinubu expect these revered figures to sell his candidacy to Plateaunians when he treats them with utter contempt before the full glare of their people who will surely and rightfully ask questions pertaining to what they saw as a farce of a visit at their hour of need?
If the presidency counts the Jos visit as an event worthy of consideration as one of condolence to the people of Jos and Plateau, it had better not. To Nigerians it was Tinubusque with all the hallmark of self-convenience, self-glorification, entitlement and devoid of the vibes, sights and sounds of a president and leader visiting and even symbolically sharing the grief that his subjects are having to endure at a period of heavy losses and mourning.
