Boko Haram: Buhari under pressure to defer US trip

Pressure has continued to mount on President Muhammadu Buhari to cancel his scheduled visit to the Unites States of America on July 20 over recent upsurge in Boko Haram attacks in parts of the country.

Some Nigerians who spoke to Hallmark maintained that the president should call off the trip, insisting that embarking on a trip outside the country at a time Nigeria is facing a national emergency and innocent citizens dying from gun and bomb attacks in several cities will not be in good taste.

According to an AFP tally, no fewer than 650 people have been killed since the president took over in May, with over 200 deaths in the last 3 days.

Boko Haram, which is fighting to establish a hard-line Islamic state in the North East and has sworn allegiance to the Islamic State group, has intensified its campaign of violence since President Muhammadu Buhari came to power on May 29, killing scores of people in recent attacks.

The latest carnage in series of attacks that have claimed more than 200 lives in just three days happened on Sunday, with forty-four people killed and 47 sustained injuries in Jos, capital of Plateau State, when Boko Haram insurgents struck inside a mosque and a restaurant in the city.

Also on Sunday, over 36 persons were killed following attacks on Birnin-Magaji Local Government Area of Zamfara and Potiskum in Yobe.

Buhari had condemned the attacks as “inhuman and barbaric” and again vowed to end the Islamists’ six-year-old insurgency.

However, the National Secretary of the PDP, Prof Wale Oladipo, said that President Buhari can travel but should not forget his responsibility as the chief security officer (CSO) of the country, stating further that the PDP will not criticise his travelling as expected by the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Oladipo explained that Buhari has the prerogative right to travel in as much as it is in the best interest of the country.

Another respondent, Dr. Gunju Oguntuwase, said it would be imprudent for President Buhari to go on his trip to the U.S in the heat of Boko Haram attacks in the country.

“It might not be in the best interest of Nigeria for the president to be abroad while our brothers at home are being bombed. I will advise him to postpone the trip for now in order to coordinate the fight against Boko Haram insurgents and for him not to be seen as an insensitive leader by Nigerians,” he advised.

A lawyer, Barrister Bode Apantaku, said that the Buhari administration may be seen as insensitive if he embarks on the trip while militants continue to kill dozens of innocent Nigerians, including women and children.

He said that the president should cancel the trip as a symbolic act of a caring leadership and out of respect for the souls that were lost – and are still being lost.

“In other climes, the usual thing is for leaders to cancel foreign trips or rush home from such trips when their countries suffer tragedies.”