President Bola Tinubu's brief appearance at Jos airport to meet survivors of the Palm Sunday attacks drew sharp criticism from a faction of the Peoples Democratic Party led by Kabiru Tanimu Turaki. The group condemned the president's decision to hold the meeting at the airport rather than visit affected communities or hospitals. More than 40 people were killed in the coordinated attacks across several churches in Plateau State. The PDP faction described the gesture as "insensitive and inhuman," claiming it deepened the pain of victims and families still reeling from the violence. The statement, issued on Friday, accused Tinubu of reducing a national tragedy to a "public relations exercise." No security officials or emergency responders were present at the airport meeting, according to eyewitness accounts.
A president meeting massacre victims at an airport tarmac, not a hospital or church, speaks volumes. Tinubu's choice to greet grieving families in a setting more suited to diplomatic arrivals than trauma counselling frames the moment as performative, not pastoral. When a head of state appears to prioritise optics over presence, it erodes public trust in moments that demand authenticity. For Nigerians who lost kin in the Plateau attacks, the image of a leader leaving before the tears dry may linger longer than the policy response.
