Former spokesperson to former Vice President Yomi Osinbajo, Laolu Akande, has criticised President Bola Tinubu for not visiting Borno State hit recently by suicide bombers before proceeding to a two-day UK visit.
While upholding Tinubu’s order to service chiefs to relocate to the State over last week’s attacks, he said Tinubu ought to have prioritized empathy by showing sympathy at a time of renewed terrorist attacks in the North-East.
The suicide bombers hit a post office, a popular weekly market and the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital t within minutes killing At least 23 people and wounding 108 others on the eve of the Tinubu’s UK State visit.
Akande told Inside Sources a Channels Television programme on Friday, the optics and timing of Tinubu’s UK trip was questionable
Akande asked: “Even if President Bola Ahmed Tinubu couldn’t reschedule his date with the British Royals at a time terrorists were killing Nigerians, attacking our soldiers and suicide bombers resurging terror in Borno, could he not have done something that would represent a form of reassurance to the people of Borno and the entire Nigerians before he jetted out from Abuja to London on Tuesday?”
“It’s just a question. What could be the options? Number one, couldn’t he have done a quick stopover in Maiduguri before going to London on the same day that he left? Or, at the barest minimum, the President could have left his voice in a direct personal message to the Nigerian people that can be broadcast showing him his body language sympathising with the pain and destruction that we have seen, including the one that we saw an ad of in Maiduguri on Monday, just a few days ago.
“But this is not to say the President utterly ignored the situation. That’s not what I’m saying. Because indeed, he directed the military high command to relocate to Borno, which they have done quite promptly,” he stated.
Akande maintained that it was beyond military deployments and security directives, leadership must also project empathy and solidarity with citizens in times of grief.
He said “however, this is my point, and it’s a general one. We seem to have become desensitised and we are denying aspects of our common humanity. It seems we are getting used to the recurrent series of death and destruction from terrorists, from bandits, and various forms of extreme violence.”
