Former presidential candidate of Labour Party (LP), Mr. Peter Obi, has accused President Bola Tinubu of abandoning Nigeria at a time of historic national distress.
This is coming after records showed President Tinubu spent 196 out of 365 days abroad in 2025 while the country descended deeper into poverty, hunger, insecurity and mass unemployment.
To him, Tinubu’s prolonged absence including a European holiday since December without a New Year address represents a collapse of leadership under his presidency.
He warned that “a nation of over 200 million people cannot be governed by press releases and aides while its president is missing in action.”
Writing on his verified ‘X’ handle yesterday, Mr. Obi argued that Nigeria is now home to the largest population of extremely poor people on earth, one of the hungriest nations globally, and a country where over 80 million young people remain unemployed, yet its president has failed to speak directly to the people at a critical moment.
He condemned what he called the “outsourcing of leadership”, noting that Nigerians learnt of foreign military strikes on Nigerian soil through U.S. and international media rather than from their own president.
Referencing a controversial digitally generated presidential photo earlier this year, Obi said,: “Leadership is not all about dishing out AI-generated images or press statements, it is standing before your people when they are afraid, hungry and uncertain.”
According to Obi, Tinubu’s repeated foreign trips and prolonged silence have created a dangerous vacuum, weakening national unity at a time when Nigeria urgently needs direction, reassurance and collective purpose.
He, however, noted that in times of crisis, absence is not neutrality but failure, noting that no economic reform, security strategy or political agenda could survive in a country where citizens feel abandoned by their own government.
Credit: The Sun