President Goodluck Jonathan has been tongue-lashed over his visit to Kano State on Tuesday, where the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, held a colorful rally to officially welcome ex-governor Ibrahim Shekarau to the fold.
Some northern groups while faulting Jonathan’s visit to the state two days after the bomb explosion, which claimed several lives in Nyanya, an Abuja suburb, described it as height of insensitivity and callousness.
Spokesperson for the Northern Elders Forum, Prof. Ango Abdullahi, and Second Republic lawmaker, Dr. Junaid Mohammed, in separate interviews with Punch, said President Jonathan had no respect for those who lost their lives in the deadly incident.
Abdullahi said it was unfair for the president to have embarked on such journey when the nation was still in a sober mood and mourning Monday morning’s bomb attack.
He said, “This is not the first time. Only recently in Katsina, when several people died, the President went on with his campaign. This is not the first time, it shows how callous the leadership of this country is.
“This is why people are asking so many questions whether they are even concerned about the insecurity that we are in and whether they are really taking serious steps to end it.
“This is really another tragedy which should have kept everybody in their houses or their offices in a remorseful mood and talking about how to prevent future occurrences. What we are seeing is ceremony, rallies and speech making without concern.
“The fact that the President was physically present in Kano shows his level of concern for this tragedy. This big tragedy is a reflection of where we are as a country. Everyday we hear of 50, 100, 200 people dying yet there are rallies going on. I am not surprised that this is the attitude being exhibited by the people at the highest level.
Speaking in the same vein, Junaid said, “The President’s trip to Kano on a political campaign was thoroughly irresponsible.
“It portrays the President as being grossly insensitive and that he cares more about winning or rigging the election in 2015 than the lives that were lost in the capital, a stone throw from where he resides.
“And if this kind of insensitivity and irresponsibility which has characterised his Presidency so far, it shows you that he does not stand a chance of winning elections in the North because this violence happened in Abuja and Abuja happens to be situated in the centre of the North.
“If he cannot be with the people of the North in Abuja, he cannot be with them in the North. As strategic as Kano is, it cannot be more important than the rest of the North”, Junaid fumed.