Peter Obi, the presidential flagbearer of the Labour Party in the general elections of 2023, has criticized President Bola Tinubu and Vice President Kashim Shettima for their international travels.
He said the excursions were alarming since they came at a time when the nation was facing internal difficulties.
According to the report, Tinubu left for a two-week working leave in the UK on October 2, 2024. On Friday, October 11, he departed the United Kingdom for France for “another important engagement,” according to a tweet from Ibrahim Masari, his Senior Special Assistant on Political and Other Matters.
Shettima, meantime, departed Abuja on Wednesday for Sweden, where she will spend two days representing Nigeria in bilateral meetings with the Scandinavian country.
The Presidency on Wednesday justified both visits by stating that there is no leadership void in Nigeria as a result of Tinubu and his deputy’s absence. The two chief officials are “fully engaged with the nation’s affairs, even while away,” according to the statement.
However, Obi, a former governor of Anambra State, responded to the Presidency’s explanation on Friday in a post on his X, arguing that it was troubling that Tinubu and his deputy were absent from the nation when the people most needed them.
He wrote, “Although it could be argued that there isn’t a vacancy in the presidency because the President and Vice President are not in the Villa, it’s alarming for a nation with so many internal issues when both are abroad, as was reported in the media yesterday.”
We were informed by the President that his absence would only last 14 days. We are still waiting for him to arrive in the nation after the fourteen days have elapsed. Given the amount of work that has to be done in a country as unstable as ours, one would have expected him to return sooner rather than later.
“We need his immediate attention to guide the country out of this current situation because of the unimaginable hardship that some of his administration’s policies have unleashed on our people.”
He claims that one would wonder why the President did not simply attend the two-day business visit to Sweden, given that he is supposedly in Paris, France, which is only 833 nautical miles from Stockholm, Sweden.
Obi went on to say, “He could have easily completed it in little over two hours on his way back from France in his new, powerful jet. Time and the extremely limited national resources that we urgently need right now would have been spared in this way.
Instead, he assigned the Vice President to represent him at the event, which required him to travel 3055 nautical miles over nine hours from Abuja, Nigeria (about four times the trip time from Paris) to Stockholm, Sweden.
Traveling from Abuja to Stockholm would require around four times as much time and distance as traveling from Paris to Stockholm. This is not the kind of budgetary responsibility and common sense that leaders whose people are suffering from extreme poverty and famine are supposed to exhibit.
“Now is the time to demonstrate to the people that you are a true and dedicated leader by making decisions that put the welfare of the people first and managing the country’s limited resources effectively to lessen the suffering of the people.”
Since taking office 17 months ago, the trips represent the second time both executives have left the nation at the same time.
Shettima left Nigeria in late April and early May 2024 to attend the International Development Association Heads of State Summit in Nairobi, while Tinubu was in London following trips to Saudi Arabia and the Netherlands, where he attended the World Economic Forum.
Following his return, he traveled to Dallas, Texas, to attend the Corporate Council on Africa’s US-Africa Business Summit. But in the middle of his journey, the vice president called it quits and went back home.
On May 8, Tinubu made his way back to Abuja.
ALSO READ:
Wizkid And Brent Faiyaz Release Their New Track, “Piece Of My Heart.”
