The Insensitivity of a Globetrotting President

Adebayo Taiwo Hassan-Justice

The full import of what leadership is, or more precisely, the section of the Nigerian constitution emphasising that “. . . security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government” is no doubt lost on President Goodluck Jonathan. Need I say quickly that given the issues I have with All Progressives Congress in terms of committing much of the disservice of which it accuses Jonathan in the states under its control (a topic for another day), I do force my mind to be sympathetic to the President.

But the more forceful I become on my mind, the more the President does things and presents disservice that makes me agree with his worst critics that, from all intents and purposes, he is as poor as he is inhumane. Of late, informing my concurrence is his insensitivity to the plight and fate of the people who bear the brunt of government failure, marked by merry making, touring the country in apparent bid to garner support for his second term bid, ceremonial overseas trips largely of no strategic significance toward the end of addressing various challenges that define the country amongst others, amidst incessant Boko Haram menace, Plateau and Benue crises and designed-to-kill immigration recruitment exercise that eventually resulted in deaths of about 20 poor young Nigerians.

As a matter of fact when I saw the picture of the immigration recruitment mess at Abuja National Stadium, I initially thought it was sponsored in The Nation by APC’s effective, efficient and brilliant spokesperson, who a friend would call propaganda specialist, Lai Mohammed. The psychological message that was delivered to my psyche which is retained till now is that the state of Nigeria deliberately decided to kill as many Nigerians as possible. Do you ask why? I am astounded as to how an exercise that involved assessment test for about 68,000 applicants was deemed to be possible in a 60,000 capacity stadium. Were the brass of Nigerian public service so thoughtless that they fail to reason that in the course of distributing test materials or registering the applicants, they(applicants) would inadvertently rush madly fearing materials would not be enough, thereby resulting in stampede?

Shortly after that, the President embarked on overseas trips to Namibia, the Holy See (Vatican City) and Netherlands, all for everything but issues relevant to Nigeria’s existential challenges. More worrisome is the moral failure of the President to receive what was called Namibian highest honour when our collective heart is still heavy over fellow compatriots that were killed in the immigration recruitment mess, Boko Haram menace and the fate of girls who were kidnapped by the sect. These are enough reasons for a serious and compassionate president to cancel trips especially as they are mostly ceremonial. Nigeria has no business at the Nuclear Summit in Netherlands as we lack capacity to accomplish any of the objectives of the Summit. Even the President failed to adopt Nuclear Security Guidelines reached at the Summit.

The conspicuous failure of our military to stop Boko Haram- a key feature of state failure as such institution as military is a way of measuring state functionality, is enough reason to cause any serious president a single minded commitment and all out effort to stop the menace. In the war of Singapore, 1942, when Britain surrendered to Japan and after the former’s defeat, Winston Churchill declared this as “the worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history”. The point is that Winston made that lamentation in full understanding of what it meant for a state to lose a battle, even though it was against a conventional and balance foe. But here in Nigeria, it is the obvious that, given the incapacity of our military to crush Boko Haram, and cases heavy loss to the insurgents in an ordinarily asymmetric war, the President is oblivious of the fact that under him Nigeria is moving rapidly to state failure with no capacity to protect citizens and being reduced to almost equivalent of Afghanistan and Iraq.

At this point, when it is imperative for the President to travel abroad or receive foreign leaders and diplomats, the motivation should be based on politico-strategic motives toward the end that the challenges we grapple with are appreciated and optimal solutions are formulated and implemented. With respect to insurgency, we are now at a stage where we can hardly help ourselves. Thus, Mr. President should not just globetrot aimlessly as he has been doing but should practically enlist the assistance of advanced countries for improved intelligence gathering, capacity training and military technology as well as fierce military campaign targeted at the real insurgents and ultimately Abubakar Shekau, if any sanguinary soul by that name ever exists.

.Adebayo Taiwo Hassan-Justice,
social commentator and critic writes from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria and tweets @Hazanjustice