In 2006, ten Nigerian military generals travelling to a private security planning meeting in the south of the country died in an aircraft crash.
The crash claimed the lives of eight major-generals, two brigadier generals and two other personnel, while six people survived.
Devastated by what he described as a ‘monumental national tragedy,’ then President Olusegun Obasanjo hastily returned home from an International Monetary Fund meeting he was attending at the time in Singapore.
After declaring three days of mourning, Mr Obasanjo attended the interment of the deceased at the military national cemetery in Abuja. Pictures of him comforting the widow of the pilot of the plane made rounds at the time.
About fifteen years later, a similar tragedy struck Nigeria again.
Last month, Nigeria’s former Chief of Army Staff, Ibrahim Attahiru, alongside ten other military personnel died from a military plane crash in Kaduna.
Like his predecessors, President Muhammadu Buhari also declared days of mourning and other mourning rituals in memory of the deceased, but he did not show up as Mr Obasanjo did.
Many Nigerians criticised Mr Buhari for failing to attend the funeral rites of the personnel, fueling accusations that the president was always absent from critical national occasions and he does not show empathy during national disasters or tragedies.
The president’s detractors believed his attendance would have amounted to a morale booster to the troops who have been battling a deadly insurgency for over a decade.
Credit: Premium Times
