in VoiceOfAmerica.
Security and 200 missing schoolgirls were on the minds of Nigerian Americans who attended a town hall meeting this week, expecting to meet President Goodluck Jonathan.
Instead, they got Arunma Oteh, head of Nigeria’s Securities and Exchange Commission.
The meeting was supposed to be a place where Nigerians in the diaspora could celebrate Nigeria’s positives but also address its challenges, VOA reports. Jonathan did not show up.
Oteh expressed satisfaction with the three-day U.S.-Africa Leaders summit hosted by President Barack Obama, saying it showed the administration and private sector realize the value of engagement in Africa.
In the audience at the town hall meeting was Olufemi Ilori, who took the day off to meet Jonathan. He was not pleased.
“I would have to say (I’m) a little disappointed in the fact that I thought it was going to be more of an interaction on issues that we are passionate about as far as Nigerians living overseas, but it’s more or less a sales speech for the president’s political agenda for the next election,” said Ilori.
Also in the audience was Emmanuel Adegoke, who said that while the Nigerian economy is booming, the same cannot be said about security.
“It’s real that girls are missing from Nigeria,” Adegoke said. “The Boko Haram thing is real. It’s not some political propaganda. It’s not made up. It’s insulting to our intelligence when someone says ‘don’t come over here and talk about Nigeria in a bad way’ when bad things are happening over there.”
The co-organizer of the town hall meeting, John Iheoma, apologized that Jonathan could not attend.
When more than 200 schoolgirls were kidnapped in April by the militant Islamist group Boko Haram, the Nigerian government’s response was considered inadequate. The incident caused international outcry.
The government is doing its best, Iheoma said. “No leader wants to welcome terrorism. We will find them but our motive should be bring these kids alive. I don’t want my 18-year-old, 14-year-old or my 11-year-old to die in a bomb blast because I want to be a hero,” Iheoma said.
