The President Of Indonesia Inspects A Complaint Personally After A TikTok Video Went Viral

Indonesia, the massive archipelago country in Southeast Asia, consists of more than 17,000 islands. And the island of Sumatra is the largest island that is fully within Indonesian territory.

And in Lampung, which is the most southern part of Sumatra, its port has long been the main gateway to the island for people coming from Java. It has intertwining roads to reach most of its remote locations. But its main roads, which carry thousands of people per day, aren't the best of roads there is.

Many locals know this, but people just neglect the fact.

Until one day, a young man from Lampung made a TikTok video, and complained about the conditions of the roads there that are far from ideal.

The whistleblower was only trying to tell the truth, and make people realize what they generally overlooked.

But for the young man, lamenting local administration inaction over damaged the roads, didn't give him the respond he expected.

The man, Bima Yudho Saputro, is a student who is studying abroad in Australia, pursuing higher education at the Australian Business Intelligence College Diploma Program in Digital Marketing.

Born in North Raman Village, East Lampung Regency, Lampung Province, Bima posted a TikTok video to his thousands of followers.

In the account where he often shared his activities in Australia, as well as his personal life by creating cultural, educational and food content. Bima made a post to complain about how the roads at his home town is extremely bad.

"I want my area to progress too, but because I'm annoyed and fed up with it, I think applying for a protection visa, becoming an Australian citizen and becoming a new asset in Australia is the best solution in my life," quoted in the TikTok video.

Many netizens commented about how true his revelations are, and praised how his bravery for exposing the dark side of Lampung.

Netizens also support and thank Bima for having the courage to open his voice

But whistleblowing a government is rarely a good thing, and following the virality of the post, he quickly grabbed the attention of some of the highest-ranking officials in Lampung.

In particular, the TikTok post caught the attention of Lampung Governor Arinal Djunaidi.

Arinal allegedly made harsh recriminations against the parents of Bima.

Due to the virality of the post, and the Lampung government's response to it, the post also gained national attention, and of course, also the attention of Indonesia's President, Joko Widodo.

Jokowi said that the central government has collected data on damaged roads in the regions. The President said that if the roads are as bad as they're told, this means that much of the budget was not directed to infrastructure.

"So we have just collected data on district/city roads that were badly damaged. Because the budgets in the provinces, districts and cities are not directed much towards infrastructure development. That is very important," Jokowi said.

"I want to make sure, tomorrow I want to see whether what is in the video, whether what is in the media is true or not," said Jokowi at Sarinah, Central Jakarta.

The President agrees to what the young man said in his TikTok video, saying that damaged roads can indeed affect the mobility of people and goods.

"The impact is that logistics costs cannot increase, so goods cannot compete with other provinces or other countries," said Jokowi.

A day later, the President landed at Radin Inten II Airport in Lampung, and instead of using a helicopter, he boarded his armored Mercedes-Benz S600 Guard official state vehicle.

The motorcade departed the airport so Jokowi could personally inspect the infrastructure in Sumatra’s southernmost province.

The President was joined by Trade Minister Zulkifli Hasan, and Minister of State Owned Enterprises Erick Thohir.

"This morning, I arrived at Radin Inten II [airport] for a working visit in Lampung, together with the Public Works and Housing Minister, State-Owned Enterprises Minister and the Trade Minister," he posted on his Twitter account @jokowi.

The President said that he specifically planned to visit the Lampung regency, where following the viral TikTok post, he heard that local residents said they had suffered the most from worsening road conditions.

Right before the brief inspection, Jokowi pledged that the central government could take over the work of improving road infrastructure in the province, if the provincial government failed to do the job.

The President added that he could immediately order Public Works and Public Housing Basuki Hadimulyono to start working on repairing roads in Lampung if the provincial government did not move fast enough.

"I want the repair work to start as soon as possible and if the provincial government does not have the capacity to do it then the public works ministry can take over the project," he said to reporters in a press briefing.

During Jokowi's visit, Lampung Governor Arinal Djunaidi was also there, but clearly looked uncomfortable.

In footage released by the President's press team and the media, the Governor was mostly quiet, and stood in silence in most of the time he was caught on camera. He even tried looking away when reporters were asking Jokowi for his solutions.

Arinal could only be seen once cheering.

He nodded his head when one reporter asked when the road repair work could commence in Lampung.

Arinal drew criticism on various social media platforms for his alleged harsh recriminations against the parents of Bima Yudho Saputro in Lampung, and after the student posted a video on TikTok criticizing the provincial government's lack of action in dealing with poor road conditions in the province.

Arinal denied this allegation.