A leading national daily in its editorial recently voiced: “Mr. President, go to Chibok,” lamenting that President Goodluck Jonathan had yet to visit Chibok two months after the abduction of the over 200 girls from the Government Day Secondary School in that town, in Borno State, and that his earlier plan to go there was cancelled abruptly. There is no shortage of commentators who have castigated the President for his decision not to undertake the trip as earlier announced. I am not a security expert, and neither are many of us who have been bashing the President, but one can’t be naïve to the fact that these are not “normal” times! True, it is only proper for the President to go to Chibok to see things for himself and empathise with the families of the missing girls. But pardon me when I say I don’t believe that this should be at the risk of a nation’s leader. Remember, there are a lot of unsavoury things going on that are better not talked about. The mistake was in announcing the trip in the first place. Surely, with that kind of arrangement, there could be more than those who have good thoughts for Nigeria waiting to welcome the President! We can learn from the United States we claim to copy their democracy in this similar circumstance. During his tenure, to mark America’s Thanksgiving holiday, former United States President George W. Bush made a surprise visit to Baghdad, Iraq. Bush spent time having dinner with about 600 stunned US troops at Baghdad airport before he left Iraq. He told the excited troop, “I was just looking for a warm meal somewhere,” and added: “Thanks for inviting me to dinner … I can’t think of a finer group of folk to have Thanksgiving dinner with than you all.” Bush had left his home in Texas a night before, and stopped for a short while in Washington to change airplanes before leaving for Iraq. As a decoy, it was earlier announced that Bush would spend Thanksgiving with his family at his Texas ranch. A menu for the said dinner was made known to the public, the Associated Press had reported. Secret service agents at his Texas ranch weren’t told, even his family only knew about it a few hours before his departure. President Bush’s trip to Iraq remained a secret affair until the President left Iraq. If there had been a wind of it, the trip would have been cancelled. We should cut President Jonathan some slack. With this never ending insurgency, everyone is a fifth columnist and a terrorist until otherwise proven. Perhaps, the families of those missing young girls, and many Nigerians will agree with me when I say, it is not so much the President going to Chibok as he answering the lingering call: “Bring back our girls”! Dr. Cosmas Odoemena
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