President Barack Obama, in the wake of the recent mass shooting that threw America into mourning, cut short a political trip to Florida to return to Washington. The unfortunate incident occurred when a delusional 24-yr-old who styled himself as The Joker, a villainous character in the Batman series, decided to act out his obsession. In a surreal twist of fate, the postgraduate dropout of the University of Colorado known as James Holmes stole into the Century 16 cinema, screening venue of the final installment of the Batman series, and shot into the audience, killing twelve people and wounding fifty-eight others.
President Barack Obama, in the wake of the recent mass shooting that threw America into mourning, cut short a political trip to Florida to return to Washington. The unfortunate incident occurred when a delusional 24-yr-old who styled himself as The Joker, a villainous character in the Batman series, decided to act out his obsession. In a surreal twist of fate, the postgraduate dropout of the University of Colorado known as James Holmes stole into the Century 16 cinema, screening venue of the final installment of the Batman series, and shot into the audience, killing twelve people and wounding fifty-eight others.
In one of the most devastating mass scale murders in recent American history, President Obama relegated his reelection campaign to the back burner to attend to the emergency. As a mark of respect to the departed souls, the United States president ordered American flags flown at half-mast and announced through his campaign spokeswoman that the Obama campaign will keep its television adverts off the air in Colorado through the whole week.
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As the chief executive of the most powerful nation in the world, President Obama has had to reprise the role of consoler-in-chief in articulating sorrow and loss for his country.
In November 2009, he led mourners at a service for victims of the mass shooting at Texas' Fort Hood. In January 2011, he spoke at a memorial for the six victims killed in Tucson, Arizona, when a gunman attacked Rep. Gabrielle Giffords as she met with constituents.
Three months later, when some 300 Americans were killed in a multistate series of tornadoes, Obama flew to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, to commiserate with residents whose homes had been destroyed. The following month, Obama flew to Joplin, Missouri, after a monster tornado claimed 161 lives.
In the wake of a national tragedy, the role of the American president in managing the situation cannot be overemphasised. In a sense, he is the one person Americans look up to for moral leadership, the one who stands and acts on behalf of the American people as a whole. This power, derived in part from his use of the visibility and prestige of his office, is essentially why Americans are persuaded to follow his lead in helping them get through any crisis.
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The American president is a unifying factor, one who reiterates the core moral values of the country, even as he seeks to bind the wounds of his people. He is the one who makes sense out of the senseless; his deeds and actions must resonate with the feelings of his people, and he must fill them with hope and confidence in his ability to lead them in troubled times.
In Nigeria, in moments of national mourning, the president is expected to give a speech that will echo his role as leader of national mourning. He is expected to recreate the American leadership concept upon which his country’s system of government draws. For President Obama had not only delivered a moving speech in the aftermath of the Colorado tragedy, but also met with the families of the victims. This gesture, while obviously will not bring back the lost ones to life, is symbolic. That the most powerful man in the world chose to prioritise the time he’d spend shedding tears and sharing jokes with the affected families and survivors of the shooting over his pressing political schedule is a powerful message that begins the healing process. An anodyne of sorts that sends a strong message of hope, of an America united in grieving for its fallen heroes. And this feat of effective leadership did resonate with Obama’s chief political adversary. Mitt Romney, the GOP presidential candidate, commended the president, even going as far as sheathing his vituperative sword when he promised that his remarks would be less politically partisan than they might otherwise have been, considering the circumstances.
The Obama example is a worthy one for our president to follow. For a man whose election into office has triggered series of sectarian/ religious violence never before experienced in the history of the country, President Goodluck Jonathan has a duty to shed his administration of the toga of insensitivity that his ever increasing detractors have tagged him with. He must work out a way of restoring the territorial integrity of the country, which is on the brink of disintegration. Granted, he did what was expected of him in the aftermath of the Madalla bombing, visiting the scene of the killing and also weeping for the lost ones in the open. But going back to the villa to announce the removal of subsidy on fuel – the only impact of a malady-stricken government that Nigerians had hitherto felt – in exactly a week after the unfortunate incident was ill-advised and smacked of a leader out of touch with the sufferings of the people that elected him into office.
Recently, the president blamed Boko Haram as the major reason for his failure to deliver a much needed statecraft to longsuffering Nigerians. While there is no gainsaying the inimical impact an atmosphere of violence can have on the socioeconomic well-being of a country, it is the president’s response each time to every uprising aimed at subverting his government that has been most reprehensible.
Barely two days after the outbreaks of sectarian violence in Kaduna and Yobe states that claimed lives of numerous innocent Nigerians, the president went on a junket to Rio for a United Nations Earth summit with a reported 116 delegates. In trying to defend his boss on the criticism that greeted the asinine trip, the minister of information Mr. Labaran Maku, in his signature abrasive style, had mouthed that the president could rule the country from anywhere.
President Jonathan comes across as someone still grappling – and by Jove he is – with the expectation of his office. His impolitic utterances have continuously provided his enemies with ample ammunition to launch their endless diatribes against his government. His actions have made him a largely unpopular figure among Nigerians. Though his image-makers and apologists continually claim to the contrary, it doesn’t take rocket science to find out that President Goodluck’s public rating has suffered a massive dent.
A foray into the world of the internet and blackberry pinging would bring one to the realization of how the president has been on the receiving end of malicious jokes themed largely on his failures. Not that Nigerians relish the schadenfraude at seeing their leader fail. But the fact that the said leader continues stubbornly in his show of ineptitude has left everyone bile chanting.
The paradox of this is that the president is not entirely clueless. He has, after all, reiterated that a peaceful Nigeria is central to the successful implementation of his plans. However, he has so much as failed to take a tentative step towards the actualization of his peace restoration agenda. Unlike his American counterpart, President Jonathan is being evasive about visiting Damaturu and Maiduguri, two flashpoints of sectarian violence in the North. He has failed to frontally tackle the issue of the pockets of violence that erupt across the country.
While the president cannot be faulted for the nation’s progressive descent into anarchy, it is his inability to bring his much anticipated – and largely yet-to-be-seen – conflict-management skills to bear that leaves much to be desired.
As things stand, the future looks bleak. The president has been woeful in his constitutional responsibility to maintain order in the country. Nigerians are disillusioned and have lost confidence in his ability to steer them out of the troubled waters stifling the country. But all hope is not lost. The president still has time to redeem himself. But for him to be able to achieve this, for him to win back the affection and confidence he once enjoyed from Nigerians in the early days of his administration, he needs to look beyond the rhetoric of excuses. He needs to start walking his walk and talking his talk.
And if he is confused on how to go about delivering on his pre-election promise, he only needs to seek the advice of a proud black man who is redefining leadership across the Atlantic.
Christopher Okonkwo writes in from Area 1, Abuja
He is the author of Concentric Circles and a public affairs analyst
Area 1, FCT, Abuja
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