Months after the killings in Taraba, Benue, Zamfara, Yobe and Rivers State instigated by both cattle herders and Boko Haram, President Buhari is set t
Months after the killings in Taraba, Benue, Zamfara, Yobe and Rivers State instigated by both cattle herders and Boko Haram, President Buhari is set to visit these states. However, the Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose, has described the planned visit as an afterthought. According to him, the President is more concerned about his reelection in 2019 and his visit to those states is to seek votes and not to sympathise with the people on their loses.
Fayose, in a statement issued by his Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka, said it was the height of cruelty that the same President, who promised to lead from the front in the fight against Boko Haram, could not visit Dapchi, Yobe State where 110 school girls were abducted by the insurgents but went on merrymaking in Kano.
“On January 9 and 12, this year, 88 victims of herdsmen attacks were given mass burial in Taraba State. Also on January 11, 2018, another 73 persons killed by suspected Fulani herdsmen in Benue State were buried in a mass grave in Makurdi, the state capital. Meaning that in Taraba and Benue States alone, 161 Nigerians were given mass burial within three days! This never caught the attention of our President. Rather, it was a visit to Nasarawa, a neighboring State to Benue that was important to him.
“To further demonstrate his lack of compassion for Nigerians, while the entire nation, especially parents of the 110 abducted school girls in Dapchi, Yobe State are still in anguish, President Buhari went to Kano last Saturday to attend a social function, thus sparking negative reactions from Nigerians. Apparently, it was the negative reactions of Nigerians, especially on Social Media and the effects on the President’s reelection bid that necessitated his hurried visit to Taraba State today, and planned visits to Benue, Zamfara, Yobe and Rivers States.
“I am sure the people of Taraba State won’t be hoodwinked by the President’s cosmetic sympathy, show of concern and crocodile tears, which he never bordered to shed when hundreds of indigenes of the State were being killed by suspected herdsmen,” the governor said.
