By Jeff Godwin Doki Ph.D
‘Haipang is not Jos’, ‘We want to see you in Angwan Rukuba’, ‘That’s not the way to show empathy in Africa’, Visit us Mr. President’, ‘Come to Us’. Chants like that ,and many more, filled the air at Angwan- Rukuba on Thursday April 2, 2026 where thousands of Nigerian citizens gathered , eagerly waiting for the arrival of their President. It was a motley crowd but largely dominated by mourners, those who had lost their loved ones in the recent massacre of March 29, 2026. Emotionally devastated, the mourners had hoped that the presence of the President would give them emotional succour. For the poor mourners, it would, at least, have been a huge comfort to have the No.1 citizen of the country coming to console them. But that did not happen.
Africa like any normal society has its own body of customs, traditions and practices that govern individual relationships to the family, the clan and tribe as well as morality, law, worship, politics, social status, economics, etiquette, war and peace. Prominent among this is empathy usually shown through condolence visits to the bereaved. Our rulers are all Africans and they know this for a fact. In Africa, you don’t mourn alone. Sympathizers pay personal visits to console and empathize with the mourners. So, for Mr. President to visit Plateau state with the desire to console residents of Angwan-Rukuba and remain at Haipang Airport is not only insultingly disingenuous, it is also a complete contravention of African ethos and beliefs. Or, has our President forgotten African norms and values because of his exalted office?
One of the most virulent ailments that destroys rulers in Distance. Our rulers do not know ‘We the People’ because of distance. Distance is a very destructive disease. It is a wedge between the ruler and the ruled by the juggernaut of power. There is always a wide distance between ‘We the People’ and our rulers. On the eve of elections, our rulers are very willing to risk their lives even in the dead of night to meet with us, to hold meetings and political rallies with us. On the eve of elections, our rulers come to woo us. They usually put sugar and honey in their tongues. They give us all manner of promises. Vote for us: ‘we shall build schools and hospitals’, ‘we shall bring water to every backyard’, we shall construct roads to every village’, ‘we shall make poverty a thing of the past’, ‘we shall chase all terrorists out of Nigeria’. Sometimes they even promise to build a bridge even where there is no river. But once they assume office distance comes in.
The man of power forgets about ‘We the People’ whose votes legitimize his power. The man of power becomes too honorable to visit us. Even the mouth becomes too honorable to greet. The very same pathways the man of power had driven on when he was seeking our votes are no longer motorable. The local Airports also cannot accommodate his big jet again. The man of power will always have a reason to avoid a face-to-face encounter with us. He knows we have been short-changed and he is afraid.
Another way of putting this is to say that distance makes the rulers forget easily how they crawled to the top. No where is the distance between the ruler and the ruled illustrated with more clarity than in the analogy I once read from the Nigerian Poet, Niyi Osundare. It goes like this:
There was a day an emperor saw a milling crowd surging
towards his palace and instantly called for his robes in a euphoric
bid to join what he saw as a great rejoicing. He had almost reached
the door when his wife pulled him by the collar and asked him to
take another look. He did. Not until then did he see the dagger in each
eye, and the thunderbolt in each voice. The emperor had seen a mob
and fancied a rally; he had mistaken a vengeful riot for a
thanksgiving carnival.
There is no doubt that the people of Angwan-Rukuba are feeling neglected, swindled, abused and angry. But is that the reason the President is afraid of visiting them? Has the President also seen the dagger in the eyes of the people and the thunderbolt in their voices? Or, perhaps, distance has made Oga’s feet to Presidential to step on Angwan-Rukuba soil? It seems clear to me that our rulers do not know ‘We the People’. Consider this: when the President was on a visit to London some weeks ago suicide bombers killed 23 people in Maiduguri. The President only sent a condolence message. In February this year, there was an attack in Woro village in Kwara state, the President did not visit the site. In June 2025, there was an attack on Yelewata in Benue State where close to 200 people were killed. The President did not visit the site citing bad roads as the reason. In the case of Plateau state, the reasons trumped for the President’s inability to visit Angwan-Rukuba are so insulting to the intelligence that you wonder if the President does not have a Media team to help him with the appropriate words or excuses. The Yakubu Gowon Airport at Haipang does not have the facilities for night flight. Ridiculous! Is it not the duty of any responsible Government to repair all the Airports in the country and construct the road to Yelewata and any other village for that matter? But this is just another good example of distance: the man of power has all but forgotten his campaign promises.
Our rulers strut across the country as if ‘We the People’ are the conquered subjects. According to my information, Plateau State Governor had earlier paid a condolence visit to the residents of Angwa-Rukuba. Good. But he did so with a battalion of security operatives that could have intimidated Iran into submission to the US in the on-going conflict in the Middle-East. Residents of Angwan-Rukuba and Nigerians would be less than human not to feel abused and deceived. Where were all the soldiers and police men when terrorists attacked Angwan-Rukuba? Why should one man, with two eyes and one mouth just like any other human being, have a thousand soldiers on his entourage when there is no single policeman in the remote villages of Riyom and Bokkos? Or, if indeed you are a sincere and popular ruler, do you really need any Police man behind you?
We are in a country where rulers are afflicted with indescribable blindness. And that blindness is the refusal to see or analyze and evaluate the enormity of problems currently confronting us, especially the poor.
Our rulers rule as if the people do not matter. Once they barricade themselves in the verandah of power they forget about the people. More than that, our rulers do not know the people and they do not know them because they are far, far away from us.
But mark this: we the people are greater than the ruler. And this is true because terrorists may assault us, they may kill and maim us today but they cannot annihilate us. We may lose our loved ones to terror-related violence today because of neglect and distance. The ruler, as usual, shall have his way as an eternal victor but, but, ‘We the people’, shall always outlast the palace. Nothing lasts forever.
Jeff Godwin Doki, a creative writer, is a Professor of Comparative Literature
