Olajide A. Omojarabi: Why Did Jonathan Visit Maiduguri

As expected, raging debates have been trailing President Jonathan’s visit on Thursday January 15 to the ravaged town of Maiduguri. To say that he had gone there for campaign, as it is speculated, may be a hasty conclusion. On the other hand, to say that he hadn’t gone to implicitly solicit for votes, as his supporters have been claiming, may be termed an intellectual myopia. Bear with me as I sample some analogies.

So let’s look at the first analogy. The visit to Maiduguri alarmed everyone as a “surprise.” Of course, it was armed forces remembrance day. Had he not gone to visit the soldiers as a height to mark the day, some would have described all his speeches and the parades in Abuja as not only uninspiring, but also cowardly. So he visited. And again, he visited without mentioning a thing about the forth coming election. He had gone, we were told, to salute the soldiers, and appraise their braveness as they battle the insurgents. He had gone, also, to reassure the people of Maiduguri that the heart of the government is still with them.

The second, however, is somewhat disturbing. If such stunt had been pulled in, let’s say a movie, we all would have felt an inner twitch of joy. The type of joy that comes from deriving pleasure in watching a movie where a ruling party is desperate to clinge to power by all means hence, doing things to win hearts, to bring opposition to its knees. Seeing such movie, we all would clap, applauding the ingenuity of the movie director. But when a surprise visit is paid to hungry, ill-equipped and underpaid soldiers just to boost their morale so they can fight on with promises of better upkeep, and a solidarity message to the traumatized people of Borno, such move may not only be described as disingenuous, but also labeled: too little, too late.

We could even still defend the president on the second analogy. Prior to his visit, a lot of critiques have challenged all those calling the president to visit the displaced regions of the country. The regions are unsettled, they said, and the security of the president is paramount. But why the swift turn? Are we now so detached from Maiduguri to even know that the town is already experiencing a relative peace? In fact, the president’s visit coincided with a time when the state is said to have witnessed one of the deadliest attacks by the terrorist groups, scooping away a reported thousands of lives and having hundreds of houses razed.

Here is a shocker. The real reason President Jonathan visited Maiduguri on a non-political ground, as reported by Premium Times was to prepare the north east for his ongoing campaigns, as a warm up to the people, scheduled to keep off in that region by the end of January. And if that be it, then shame on our democracy.

It is a disturbing fact that Nigerian politicians only return to their regions or states when general elections are near. They go back to continue their empty promises from where they had stopped four years ago. And knowing how impoverished and intellectually starved majority of our people are, they hand out material comforts and food items that will only last a day or two. Some don’t even give out anything to win the hearts of people who often are too stupefied to have in their midst someone they voted for. Our politicians are like kings in the old days that are only seen once a year, dressed in colorful regalia, during a major festival. These days, Nigerians are mostly awed to see the politicians stand before them. They’re like demigods.

President Jonathan visited a traumatized Maiduguri and I’m concerned with how we perceived it as a people. Of course, his obvious supporters and cohorts are ranting on social media as if that had automatically won him the election. Some other Nigerians appraised him, making us have this feeling as if he couldn’t have gone there at a better time. Part of the reasons why Nigerians are wavered about the president’s candidature is due to his lame, late responses to security issues. Had he visited Maiduguri, even fleetingly when the girls were abducted or since the attacks started followed by an inspiring effort to restore peace, and then visited now, he would have demonstrated the courage of a president who isn’t desperate for power, but concerned about his people’s distresses. Visiting now, as I perceive it, is just a sprint that the president is pulling against the opposition: the first to reach the finish line.

Our people forget things in a hurry, and forgive just to move on. But it is also only human to forgive and forget that which is not bound to hurt us again, that which won’t even give us any reason to forgive, because without offenses, there wouldn’t be forgiveness. But we forgive and forget politicians who loot year in year out by voting for them with just measures of rice and yards of wrappers that will bleach at an instant wash. We forgive and forget because they dress in our tribal wears and worship our kind of God. We forgive and forget because they return to us once in a long time to promise us that our destroyed houses will be rebuilt and our dead ones will be raised. While, as usual, we don’t care for whatever reasons the president had visited Maiduguri, we all should be worried, really worried if he had gone for the reported reason.

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Twitter- @olaomojarabi

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