As you may have known by now, President Goodluck Jonathan is very active on Facebook and uses that medium to post messages frequently. Most of his messages are quite long. For those who do not have the time to read it all, I have provided a summary below so you don’t have to. This was posted on Facebook on Wednesday 6 October, 2010.

President Goodluck Jonathan expressed sadness at the Abuja bombing and offered condolences to the families of the victims.

According to GEJ, Security agencies have been instructed to protect lives and property.
Also Security agencies within and outside the country are working round the clock to bring the bombers to justice. He Called on Nigerians to go about their normal businesses and not be intimidated by the bombers.

GEJ decried the fact that some people have politicised the bombing for their own selfish interests. He said families of the victims need compassion and empathy not politics. He added that the Federal Government will share in the pains of the bereaved and injured and that the best medical care possible will be provided to the injured.

Finally, he said “the Federal Government is very much aware of its most fundamental responsibility to its citizens: THE DEFENCE OF YOUR RIGHT TO LIFE, THE PROTECTION OF YOUR LIBERTY AND PROPERTY. On this mission, we cannot afford to fail.”

http://www.facebook.com/#!/notes/goodluck-jonathan/in-defence-of-life-liberty-and-property/160678637293113

My 2 cents: In addition to the “best medical care possible”, I think the families of the victims should be compensated for the lives of the deceased. It is difficult to put a figure on the value of a human live but it can be done. The individual lives of the 9/11 victims were “calculated” by Kenneth Feinberg and some families got up to 1 Million Dollars in compensation.

This sounds like a lot of money. But it was a good deal for the American government because if the victims’ families had sued, they may get much more than that. Accepting the money precludes them from suing. Some families rejected it in-order to preserve their right to sue.