MAIDUGURI, Nigeria — Amid apparent security concerns, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan canceled a trip Friday to the town where Islamic extremists abducted more than 300 schoolgirls a month ago, as angry parents said he showed no respect for their emotions.
It would have been the first reported visit by the president to the scene of an attack in the northeastern region that for five years has experienced increasingly deadly assaults from Boko Haram.
Jonathan, a Christian from the south, has been accused of insensitivity to the plight of the mainly Muslim northerners.
More than 1,500 civilians have been killed this year alone.
“This is really sad to most of us because we all thought he would come, and we are all thinking that his coming would give us better hope for our children’s freedom,” said one of the parents, who had been told to gather at the burned-out remains of the school to welcome Jonathan.
“But here we are being tossed up and down, people playing with our emotions,” he complained.
The Borno state governor had cut short a trip to London, arriving home hours before the president’s scheduled appearance in Maiduguri, the northeastern state capital that was the base of the Boko Haram terrorist network.
Mike Omeri, director general of the governmental National Information Center, denied at a news conference that the president had ever planned a trip to Chibok.
Chibok community leader Pogu Bitrus said earlier Friday that though residents had been angry at Jonathan’s slow response to the girls’ plight, they did not hold it against the president and considered his visit “better late than never.”
Boko Haram insurgents on April 15 abducted more than 300 students from the Chibok Government Girls Secondary School.
Police said 53 managed to escape and 276 remain in captivity.
Two officials confirmed the cancellation, saying there were concerns about security after news of the planned trip was leaked to the media and published on front pages of newspapers Friday. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not supposed to give information to reporters.
A Section on 05/17/2014