President Goodluck Jonathan on Thursday paid a surprise visit to Maiduguri, Borno State, one of the three North-Eastern states worst hit by Boko Haram insurgency.
Jonathan embarked on the trip shortly after laying a wreath at the National Arcade, Abuja in commemoration of the Armed Forces Remembrance Day.
There had been clamour for him to visit the zone since April 14 when over 200 schoolgirls were abducted in Chibok by the sect.
Critics also chided the President for continuing his presidential campaign without visiting or not making a direct comment on the January 3 killings in Baga and Doron Baga in Borno State by Boko Haram.
Amnesty International had said on Monday that reports it got from the locals showed that over 2,000 people were killed and their houses razed. But the Defence Headquarters in Abuja denounced the international human rights agency’s claim, saying about 150 people died in the attacks.
Before the Thursday visit which came barely a week ahead of the Peoples Democratic Party presidential rally scheduled to hold in Maiduguri on January 24, the United States denounced the latest Borno killings as “an enormously horrendous slaughter of innocent people.”
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