Boko Haram: BBOG Campaigner, U.S. Rep Insists Trump Lacks Compassion

The Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG) campaigner and United States Congresswoman, Frederica Wilson, has  maintained that President Donald Trump’s condolence call to the widow of Sergeant David Johnson who died in a Boko Haram ambush in Niger last week, Myeshia, showed lack of compassion.

Wilson, in a statement Wednesday night, said despite Trump’s criticism of what she said, she stood by the original account of the President’s call to Johnson’s family. The Congresswoman, a Democrat, said the “account has also been confirmed by family members who also witnessed Trump’s “incredible lack of compassion and sensitivity.”

Johnson was killed while on a mission to provide training and security assistance to West African armed forces battling the Boko Haram insurgents, the group Wilson said she had also been fighting to defeat since the abduction of nearly 300 Chibok schoolgirls in 2014.

President Trump has been quoted to have said, during a condolence call to the Johnsons,  that the slain soldier “knew what he signed up for.”

U.S.President, however, said in a Tweet that the congresswoman “totally fabricated” what he said to the wife of “a soldier who died in action (and I have proof). Sad!,” just as the White House Press Secretary, Sarah Sanders, said Wilson’s criticism was “appalling and disgusting.” She also accused Wilson of politicising the soldier’s death.

Wilson said in the statement that the issue was personal to her as Sgt. Johnson was a member of her community and of the 5000 Role Models of Excellence Project that she founded to help boys of color build successful futures.

“The loved ones Sgt. Johnson leaves behind are my constituents and my job now is to do all that I can to help them heal,” she added.

The legislator noted the task of uncovering the circumstances surrounding the ambush and working to help ensure that soldiers have all of the resources and support that they need while putting their lives on the line was a necessary one.

Wilson was among the U.S. Congressional delegation to Nigeria, the largest of its kind to West Africa, led by Senator Christopher Coons on August 31 with remarks delivered on security, business and social entrepreneurship.