Huhuonline.com understands that when President Bola Tinubu finally arrived in Jos to commiserate with victims of the Palm Sunday massacre that claimed at least 28 lives in the Angwan Rukuba community, many expected a moment of solemn presidential empathy - a leader walking through the rubble, embracing the bereaved, and seeing firsthand the scars of violence. What unfolded instead was a visit that never truly left the airport tarmac.
The President met with victims, community leaders, and stakeholders at a hall adjoining the Yakubu Gowon Airport in Heipang, approximately 40 minutes from Jos township. Grieving families - including a mother named Rhoda whose bloodied embrace of her slain son had become the viral image of the attack - were transported to the airport to see the President, rather than the other way around .
Tinubu, after offering words of consolation and promising that “this experience will not repeat itself,” departed before dusk, citing flight restrictions and the absence of navigational aids at the runway that made night operations impossible.
For many Nigerians watching, the imagery was jarring. A grieving mother, barely days after burying her child, being transported to an airport terminal to meet her President. A commander-in-chief who could not - or would not - leave the perimeter fence of the airport facility to tread the bloodied grounds of Rukuba.
However, the Presidency, through Special Adviser Bayo Onanuga, has defended the arrangement as a necessary concession to logistical realities: a delayed bilateral meeting with Chadian President Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno, a 40-minute drive to the city, and a runway that cannot accommodate night flights.
“The constraints made it unfeasible to drive into town, meet victims for on-the-spot assessment and return to the airport before dusk,” Onanuga explained .
Yet explanations, however plausible, have done little to quiet the outrage.
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar did not mince words, describing the visit as “a brief stop at the foot of his aircraft, never extending beyond the airport, never reaching the grieving communities, and never touching the pain of the victims” . He further alleged that the visit was “hurriedly curtailed” to allow the President to proceed to Lagos for the Easter holidays - a charge the Presidency has denied.
Beyond the optics of an airport condolence lies a deeper question that lingers long after the presidential jet departed: what will change? The President announced the deployment of 5,000 AI-enabled surveillance cameras across Plateau State, directed security chiefs to track down the killers, and constituted a committee to assess losses and provide compensation . These are not insignificant measures on paper. But for communities that have endured cycles of violence for decades -where each massacre is met with promises, committees, and camera installations - the announcements bear familiar words and convey little or no reprieve.
Just like Governor Caleb Muftwang, who while addressing his own terrified and ravaged citizens in the aftermath of Palm Sunday attacks reportedly did not step out of his armoured vehicle. Days later, President Bola Tinubu arrived in Jos but never left the airport. The symbolism is unmistakable: if those who command the nation's security apparatus cannot bring themselves to stand unprotected where citizens were slaughtered, what message does that send to the citizens themselves? The implicit admission is that the terrain remains unsafe - unsafe even for the governor, unsafe even for the President. And if it is unsafe for them, then it is fundamentally unsafe for everyone.
When leaders remain inside armoured vehicles at disaster sites and confine presidential condolences to airport lounges, they inadvertently validate the darkest conclusion a citizen can reach: that the state cannot protect you, and the state knows it cannot protect you. This is not mere cynicism; it is a rational and logical inference.
If the governor requires ballistic plating to address his own people in his own state, and the commander-in-chief cannot risk a 40-minute drive into Jos township before nightfall, then the average farmer, trader, or mother in Plateau's rural communities has no realistic expectation of security from government.
The government may deploy the 5000 cameras and form committees and issue condemnations, but cameras do not stop machetes. Committees do not block bandit and militia attacks. And presidential condolences, no matter how well-intentioned, do not fill the gap left by an absent security architecture.
This leaves citizens with a grim and largely unspoken option for survival. What options remain when the state signals, through its own protective posture, that danger has outpaced its reach? Increasingly, across Nigeria's conflict zones, the answer has been self-organisation - neighbourhood watches, community defence networks, and, in more desperate cases, the formation of local militias.
These are not ideal solutions. They carry profound risks: escalation of cycles of violence, extrajudicial actions, and the potential fragmentation of communities along ethnic or religious lines. But they emerge from a logic that is hard to argue with when your neighbour's house is burning and no help is coming. The alternative - passive waiting for a security response that will arrive late or not at all - has proven fatal. Citizens are beginning to ask uncomfortable questions: Should we build our own alert systems? Should we stockpile means of defence? Should we reconsider our willingness to remain unarmed while attackers come armed? These are not questions born of aggression. They are born of abandonment. And until leaders step out of their armoured vehicles and walk the bloodied ground - not as a photo opportunity but as a sustained commitment to reinventing security from the ground up - more citizens will conclude that the only protection they can truly count on is the protection they provide themselves.
Responding, to inquiries on why President Bola Tinubu addressed relatives of the slain, Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser to the President, said;
"President Tinubu's itinerary for Thursday included two main engagements: receiving the Chadian President, Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno, and proceeding to Iperu, Ogun State. After Governor Caleb Mutfwang's briefing, President Tinubu suspended the trip to Ogun. Overnight, the Presidential Villa made arrangements for the visit to Jos, with presidential assets quickly deployed. However, the President could not postpone the scheduled visit by the Chadian leader."
"The President of Chad was at the Presidential Villa for a very important bilateral meeting focused on strengthening security collaboration between the two countries. The meeting ran longer than expected, affecting President Tinubu’s scheduled departure for Jos."
"Upon arrival in Jos, the visit encountered some logistical challenges. While the road distance from the airport to Jos township is approximately 40 minutes, the runway does not support night flights due to the absence of navigational aids. The constraints made it unfeasible to drive into town, meet victims for on-the-spot assessment and return to the airport before dusk. Consequently, state and federal officials decided to bring representatives of the affected community to a hall adjoining the airport so the President could meet with them promptly while adhering to flight restrictions. Among the people in the hall were the Minister of Defence, the Chief of Army Staff and the Inspector General of Police, who had visited Rukuba, the epicentre of the conflict. President Tinubu deployed the high-level team to Rukuba, including the Senior Special Assistant on Community Engagement, to undertake critical groundwork on security and community engagement, with a view to stabilising the area before his arrival."
"Beyond expressing his condolences to the victims, President Tinubu’s objective was to engage with critical stakeholders in Plateau State on ending the recurring, decades-old conflict that has resulted in needless loss of lives and property."
"President Tinubu’s visit to Jos was not merely symbolic. It was a strategic, high-level engagement aimed at bringing all stakeholders together to address the root causes of conflict and insecurity in the state."
"He interacted with the victims, consoled them, and listened to them. He also listened to local leaders and assured them that the federal government would deliver justice and end the cycle of violence. He promised the deployment of 5000 AI-enabled cameras to monitor the city and enhance the identification and arrest of troublemakers."
"Furthermore, the President invited the community leaders to Abuja for further talks on finding a lasting solution to the recurring violence in the state."
"The meeting, televised live, was solemn and reassuring, boosting residents' confidence. President Tinubu achieved the purpose of his visit, despite the naysayers' attempts to ridicule it. He dropped an unmistakable message: sustainable peace must be built with the people, not imposed on them."
 |
|
